The moose calf had been born a year previous, all legs and head, slick-wet and looking for all the world like he had been constructed by committee from a box of spare parts. Barely dry, the calf is nuzzled and nudged onto his feet; the cow somehow indicated that he should follow. When he slowed or stumbled, she waited or shortened her own long strides to more closely match shorter legs that sometimes seemed to have a mind of their own; their hooves made twinned tracks through the muddy places.
TAKEN LAST JUNE in Mapleton by photographer Michael Gudreau, this moose is getting used to his surroundings on Route 11. Ironically, a baby deer was on the other side of the road at the same time this photo was taken. Gudreau believes the same moose is still in the Mapleton area and he “checks on him” from time to time.
By example, she showed him how to pick his way through the dense brush, how to find soft, succulent water weeds to browse in dripping mouthfuls, how to sniff the air to find the invisible signs that allow moose to make their way through the forests of northern Maine. He followed her, he watched her, he remembered her lessons. When they stopped to rest, he collapsed in a heap and when he slept, she watched over him, ready to take on the world if that was what it took to keep him safe.
It was a good life, a happy and contented life, a pattern that continued through summer, fall, and deep snows in deep woods and that he imagined would continue forever.
But as the second spring and his first birthday approached, she no longer waited for him. She no longer was as patient or as watchful when he stopped to rest. She butted him away, ignored his entreaties, and finally slipped away when he was distracted by water weeds. She may have raced fast and furious into the dense undergrowth, leaving him alone and exhausted, semi-lost and very confused.
Her instincts tell her that she needs to leave her yearling to invest her time and energy in a new calf due in the new Spring. This is the way of moose; the cow will not see her calf grow beyond his first winter and he may or may not make it through the several weeks that follow her departure. The hazards are many while his experience and ability to make sense of his new world is limited.
Befuddled and alone in the woods, he may follow a skidder for miles; nearer town, he may stand in pastures with indifferent horses or cows for days or walk right through fences, trailing bits of wire and insulators on stubby little horns. Every sound, every breaking twig makes him swing his head hopefully. Mom!? The black flies gnaw at his fleshy parts and make him favor the road as a brief respite from their torment.
Yearlings are everywhere in the spring, gangly-legged and sad-faced, standing alongside the road or weaving down the center-line ahead of a car trying to pass. Anxious eyes scan in both directions, looking, looking, looking for the only thing that matters to him at the moment. Mom?! These distracted children require our careful attention as we hurtle our steel cages through the woods of northern Maine.
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net. The group’s website is https://sites.google.com/site/presqueislefarmersmarket/
