By air, land, and water, moose-peepers persevere

By David Aldrich, Globe Correspondent, 4/21/2002

		A female moose rises from a taste dinner of underwater plants. (Globe photo / David Aldrich)  If you go  More on Maine  More on New England  Maine postcards  New England photos

GREENVILLE, Maine - "Have you seen a moose yet?"

You are likely to be asked that when you arrive at Moosehead Lake in northwest Maine. It's always another visitor who asks, never a native, and it's always someone who has seen a moose and somehow knows that you haven't.

My wife, Nancy, and I had spent our first two days there without seeing a moose. We felt like failures.

"Yup, well, I've seen one," an elfin man told me in front of a craft shop in Greenville, the main town on Moosehead Lake, where he and I dawdled while our wives shopped inside. He wore a Yankees cap that sank down to his ears, and was clutching a video camera in his fist. He was smug.

"Yup, I saw this big guy just standing there in the field, about as far away as that telephone pole over there," he said, gesturing with his camera. "Yup, right about that far away."

At dinner that same evening, the couple at the next table, discovering that we were moose-less, felt compelled to inform us that they'd seen "three moose already today." The man held up three fingers. "Three," he said.

Theirs were just three of the 30,000 or so that live in Maine and the 1 million that wander the woods of the northern United States, Canada, and Alaska. Vegetarians, full-grown moose consume up to 50 pounds of greenery a day. They eat leaves, bark, fungus, aquatic plants, and just about anything that grows; the term "moose" means "twig eater" in Algonquin. Their diet seems to agree with them because, as anyone who has seen a moose up close will immediately tell you, they are huge. A full-grown Maine bull moose stands 7 feet tall at the shoulder and weighs 1,000 pounds or more. An Alaskan moose can weigh 1,800 pounds.

Moose mature in about five years and live to age 20 or so. Females usually start calving in their second year, and about a third of the time give birth to twins. Males grow full antlers by age 5, lose them each winter, and start regrowing them in the spring. Moose are loners and rarely gather in herds. A female and her calf remain together for one year, when one day she suddenly turns on the puzzled youngster and chases it away.

Bears and wolves kill many young moose in spite of the ferociousness of the mother, whose kick can kill a bear ... or a human. Never get between a moose and her calf. A bull moose - capable of running 35 miles per hour - is dangerous during rutting season in September and October, but surprisingly timid the rest of the year. The greatest danger to humans, however, is the risk of hitting a moose when you're behind the wheel, which is frequently fatal to both driver and beast.

We were in the car when we saw our first moose. He was about 200 yards away on a rise in the road ahead of us, a bull with a large rack of antlers, really only a silhouette in the dusk. We caught just a glimpse before he slipped into the woods. We were thrilled.

Surprisingly, you can get much closer to one of these creatures from a car than on foot or in a canoe. On several other occasions, Nancy and I stopped within 15 feet of a moose. When you have this kind of luck, just stay quietly in the car or the animal will run away. Unless another car scares it off, the critter will often stand around for a few minutes, looking your way from time to time, then wander into the woods.

A moose's comfort zone when people are nearby on foot seems to be 100-150 feet. Moose have bad eyesight, which means that if you stand perfectly still against a dark background, they might not see you. But their sense of smell is excellent. You can tell if the moose has spotted you because every minute or so it will look up from eating and stare directly at you. Of course, that's when you get your best photographs.

If it's a female, and she periodically looks at you and then glances at a spot behind her in the woods, that's where she's hidden her calf. If you get between the two, or even go near that area, she will come after you.

Look for moose near streams and bogs as well as along the road, especially where moose crossing signs are posted (I was lucky enough to get a photo of a young male loitering near one of those signs). The Maine woods are thick, and I never spotted a moose while hiking. However, I did once see a black bear a hundred feet in front of me on the trail. He ran away from me, and I ran away from him. A guide on a canoe trip later told me that I was "lucky" to have spotted a bear. Uh-huh.

Seeing moose from a car is a matter of luck. Take a moose tour - pontoon boat, van, canoe, or airplane - and you'll almost certainly see one. But the experience varies greatly.

We were disappointed by our pontoon boat trip. We did see one large male with a full set of antlers along the shore, but the rackety boat had him splashing away before we got within 200 yards. The female we saw in the woods also fled before we got near. Pontoon boats are less expensive than other tours, however, and are relatively comfortable and convenient.

Aerial tours are fun if you like bouncy small planes, unnerving if you don't. Moose from 1,500 feet appear ant-sized, however, and you wing over them so fast that you get only a brief look. Still, it is fun to roar over a hill and come upon a moose knee-deep in a stream. The moose usually keeps on eating without looking up. We saw six moose during our one-hour flight, including a mother who trotted her calf into the woods when she heard us.

If you have the energy, the most enjoyable way to observe moose is from a canoe. First of all, canoes are silent and tranquil; second, because of their shallow draft, they can slip far into bogs and marshes. On the third and last of the three guided canoe trips that we took, we saw 16 moose feeding in the marsh next to a small lake. We simply paddled near them and sat and watched.

It was a chilly, pink dawn. We talked in whispers. We heard the occasional swish of a paddle, the calls of morning birds, and the splash whenever a moose ducked its head under water to feed and then raised it quickly to turn and watch us. Water dripped off its long nose; greenery dangled from its mouth while it chewed.

Some moose stood at the marsh's edge; some stood in the water up to their shoulders and fed; and some dove completely under water for plants. They all knew we were there, but paid little attention to us.

Our guide, Wayne Plummer, operates the Northern Pride Lodge in Kokadjo with his wife, Barbara. Wayne passed out moose facts as necessary, but mostly just enjoyed the trip along with us, which we appreciated. Morning tours leave at an agonizing 5 a.m., and evening trips start at 4 p.m. Wayne said that "mornings are better some years, evenings others." He also said that on his tours he has "never not seen a moose."

As for us, in two weeks we saw 40 moose. Forty. I hope that guy with the Yankees cap is reading this.

David Aldrich is a freelance writer who lives in Lexington.

How to get there

Greenville, Maine, is a 51/2-hour drive from Boston. Take Interstate 95 north to exit 39, then Route 7 to Dexter, Route 23 to Guilford, and Route 15 to Greenville.