A photograph of a bull moose at the edge of a forest in early autumn colors, recently circulated amongst neighbors on the Taconic Plateau, compelled reflection on how this landscape supports what has been described as “one of the most charismatic megafauna to roam the forests of the Northern Hemisphere.” The moose is the largest species of deer in the world and among the largest land mammals in the world. The inspiring October image, contributed by Rie McCarthy, concludes this post. Look for her portrait of a cow moose, too.
A few residents and environmental professionals contributed the following observations.
One morning, driving to work, I was stopped, in amazement, by an antlered giant towering over my car: a moose standing in the roadway. He was completely uninterested in my presence. I waited until the great animal ambled to road’s edge and surprisingly quickly disappeared into the shrubbery. — AW
It is pretty amazing that animals that big blend in so well in the woods. — RMcC
My son and I were heading out to catch his school bus and a bull moose was walking down the road in the same direction. We were right behind him on the road in the morning, couldn’t pass him and followed him for a few minutes until he turned into a driveway. — RMcC
Spring last year, we had a female moose pass by our house, stood twenty feet from our kitchen window. A few days later, three cows walked by our field (guessing the same female and maybe two juveniles but we are not positive). — RMcC
Moose sightings on the Taconic Plateau, in the hills surrounding the Town of Mount Washington, are more likely to be of enormous hoof prints in the mud and mounded piles of round droppings. As native Dave Whitbeck also recalls, he discovered the nose of a skull sticking up through snow or debris. Digging it up, a four-and-a-half-foot-wide rack of antlers was revealed. Racks of antlers as long seven feet, and almost as wide, have been noted in the literature.
The Nature Conservancy’s Rene Wendell recounts:
I’ve seen a few moose in my adventures in the Berkshires. Saw a cow and calf in Windsor and a young bull in Pittsfield. About five years ago I found a skeleton of a young bull on the TNC preserve in Mt. Washington. He most likely died of starvation during the winter.
For an in-depth scientific perspective on moose in the landscape, go to TNC’s Nature Connects Webinar: Learn About Moose and Bears in Massachusetts.
Tom Tyning, professor of environmental science at Berkshire Community College, found three distinct sets of moose antlers 10 years ago when studying rattlesnakes, another Taconic celebrity. He, like Whitbeck, observes evidence of moose rubbings high on trees. The bark of saplings is rubbed off in the process of moose polishing the velvet off their new antlers, an annual exercise.
Professor Tyning speaks of the history of many animals extirpated from the landscape by the 1700s as the result of unregulated hunting and forest clearing, and now, evidence of their return. To learn many essentials about moose, please read the brief and highly informative “Learn About Moose.”
