New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Moosely Sunny

Thursday 02/24/2005

Well, yesterday turned out far different than I had expected. In fact there was a sharp left turn to the North to my day by around 10:00 am.

I had started my day by checking on the completion of a small grants habitat project so I could sign-off on the project and the land owner could be reimbursed of part of the cost. By 9:30 or 10:00, I was back on Route 4 headed East to my office when I got a call about a strange acting moose in Wakefield.

I got to the office and connected to the conservation officer on-scene who advised that a female moose calf was acting to friendly and could actually be petted. She had caused problems with people approaching her and had become a traffic hazard as well. No doubt she would soon be struck at night as she frequently stood in a road.

I quickly gathered tranquilizing equipment, nets in case we needed to coax her if she didn't need to be tranquilized, and assorted gear. Another Region 3 biologist Julie Robinson happened to be in headquarters and would head up from there with the moose trailer.

I arrived at the scene about 12:30 while to conservation officers kept an eye on the moose. They were also ready to guide her into the trailer. She was indeed practically tame as anyone could walk right up to her. Usually moose like this are sick from brain worm and need to be put down. But this one displayed no neurological symptoms of brain worm and was in fact feeding and deficating. She appeared very healthy, except for the weird tameness.

One of the conservation officers had a possible explanation. When he arrived in the morning, he observed a man petting and treating this animal like a pet. This same man had a history of illegally having pet deer and foxes living with him INSIDE his house. This was the only logically explanation for her tameness of an apparently well animal

We all felt that despite the fact that he had tamed her and really had doomed her as she would certainly be killed by a car, as she did not know to stay out of the roads and away from people, we could move her to a very remote location and hope for the best.

Julie arrived with the moose trailer about 1:00pm and very quickly the conservation officers grabbed the moose around the neck and simply walked her up to the trailer. She baulked at entering, but I gave her butt a good shove and in she went. Julie quickly locked the front door as two of us flipped the ramp closed. TOO QUICKLY, as one of the conservation officers was trapped inside with a moose that was NOT TOO HAPPY inside the trailer as her ears were down and back. We had to scramble for keys to let the officer out, and not the moose.

The moose rode well and laid down right off, which was a real relief for me. It was a pretty bumpy three-hour ride to where we released her well within the National Forest boundary. We let her out at 3:56 and guided her into a thick stand of hardwoods. She had acres of browse around her and other "real moose" not far away. We really felt that we did the very best we could for this moose. Julie and I were all smiles as I navigated the truck and trailer back out the gated logging road we had gone in. I made it back to Pittsfield just in time for my 7:00 pm meeting. It was a perfect day all round!