I posted this about fifteen years ago. So sue me. I think that moose are pretty interesting animals. They ain’t pretty, but they are pretty interesting. I don’t know why, but I remember their scientific name: alces alces. A moose is just the biggest kind of deer, when you get right down to it. And by big, I mean 1,500 pounds big, occasionally. Tall, too. Sometimes 7 foot at the shoulder. That’s why you don’t want to run into a moose on the highway. It’s lethal to the moose, but it’s a suicide pact with anyone in the front seats, too. The vehicle hits their legs, and the moose’s big ol’ body flops right in through the windshield. It’s about the same as having a Harley thrown at you.
Like most of the more intelligent animals, they eventually figure out that the weird pink creatures mean them no harm, and let them poke at them without taking too much umbrage. Some animals can even remember a kindness done to them. Your house cat, can, for instance. It doesn’t cut any ice with them, but they do remember it.
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Okay, somebody’s gotta do it:
“My sister was bit once by a moose…”
I had a friend who drew a moose permit. He’d been driving by a swamp on his way to work every day (this was in remote northern MN) where a big bull moose would hang out, chomping on the swamp vegetation. The day the season opened he drove out, propped his rifle on the truck, and took the shot. Moose dropped right there. He had a winch on the truck, and went out into the muck, hooked up the moose, and dragged it to dry land where he gutted and quartered it, then put it in the back of the truck to take to the game register. His only comment, “About as exciting as shooting a cow.”
On t’other hand a full-grown moose gives up a LOT of meat, and it’s much better than venison. I’d never had moose bourgogne before, but it was superb.
Hi Blackwing- If you didn’t do it, I prolly would have.
Yeah, the moose lottery is a big deal here in Maine, too. I’ve had flying squirrels at my house, but never a moose.
Dad took the family to Canada for vacation a few times, mostly to fish. Missasauga.
One year we were (7 of us) all in the small motorboat just cruising the lake when we spotted a mama moose and her calf wading on the edge of the lake.
Dad thought it would be amusing to ride up close to the mama and calf. Mama was not amused.
She started to charge our boat, running through that water as if it wasn’t there.
Our boat was heavy with all of us in it and when dad did an about-face to escape we all thought we were dead meat. Mama came very close but stopped and let us get away. Dad wasn’t smiling so much then. I have respected mooses ever since.
I was canoeing once in the Boundary Waters when we spotted a moose standing belly-deep in water browsing the bottom weeds. It was a good-sized bay, and my BIL and I thought we could get a good view of it. I was in the bow, and we slowly paddled towards it. Both of us knew moose could be touchy about being approached, but we figured we could paddle a lot faster than it could swim.
We were about 30 yards away, and I was looking at the moose finally noticing us, when my paddle hit bottom. I looked down to see the water under me only a foot deep. Turns out that moose knew where the drop-off was. We immediately started to back water until we were past the drop-off (it was an underwater cliff, basically) and then kept moving back a little farther. We heaved a sigh of relief, and the moose just ignored us and went back to lunch.
Two lucky gentlemen you were.