Mooseketeers

This bull moose appeared outside my kitchen window last month, as I was brewing coffee. It was making its way along the shore of the Contoocook River, using the river as a travel corridor. I grabbed my camera and played wildlife paparazzi, snapping a bunch of close-up photos as it made its way toward downtown Peterborough.

I saw my first moose in New Hampshire about 20 years ago. I was driving home from a hiking trip in the White Mountains, and came upon a bunch of cars parked willy-nilly along the Kancamagus Highway. I slowed and looked over to see a mother moose and calf munching weeds in a roadside bog, doing their best to ignore the tourists snapping pictures and pointing "look, those are moose!" Yes they were. Two decades ago moose were just starting to make their reappearance in New Hampshire, and seeing one was a rarity. Since then I've seen many more, both on hikes in the White Mountains and increasingly, in and around Peterborough.

I saw this young moose a couple of years ago, over in Stoddard. There's a large forested area there, between Rte 9 and Rte 123, which is home to at least 10 to 12 moose. I've been tracking and photographing this particular herd for several years, and happened to get lucky with this photo. I've gotten in the habit of carrying the camera around my neck, powered up and zoomed in, because it's hard to get that deer or coyote to wait around while you get your camera out of your backpack. On this particular summer afternoon, in what must have been early August, I had stopped along a logging road to eat the raspberries that were ripening (I do love raspberries). There I was deep in the bushes, munching away, and not really paying attention as this young moose trotted up the trail. As I turned and caught sight of it, it stopped and tried to figure out what I was. I've read that moose have mediocre eyesight (how does one figure that out?). This one stood there for a couple of minutes, deciding if I was friend or foe. I was able to get a dozen photos before it finally turned and trotted off in the other direction.

Moose have been returning to New Hampshire for the past 20 years, making their way south from Canada and Maine, where they've bided their time for the past 150 years. They were abundant throughout most of the Northeast 200 years ago, but disappeared in the 19th century as a result of hunting and farming. The connection between hunting and moose disappearance is probably obvious. As for farming, as rocky and anemic as New England's soil is, most of New England was cleared for pasture 150 years ago. By the 1850s New England was only 20% forested. Moose are woodland animals, and the lack of forest led to a lack of moose. NH Fish & Game estimate that there were only a dozen or so moose left in the state by 1860. In the latter part of the 19th century the advent of railroads and good sense led New England's farmers to give up plowing rocks and move their farms to the Midwest. Since that time the forests and the moose have been coming back. Today New Hampshire is 85% forested, and there are thousands of moose living in the Granite State.

When hiking you may not see moose as often as you'll see moose sign, such as the browsed maple shown here. Moose use their lower incisors to scrape bark off young
maple trees. The name "moose" is adapted from the Algonquin word for "twig eater", and in addition to tasty bark moose also eat maple, willow and alder twigs and buds, leaving snapped and broken branches behind as evidence of their repast. There's not a lot of nourishment in bark and twigs (but you have to love that fiber), so moose eat a lot, up to 50 pounds of vegetation a day. Given the relationship between input and output, you're likely to see large piles of scat when in moose country, looking like this. It seems that early morning and later in the afternoon are the best times to see moose, although I've seen them in mid-day as well. I have yet to see one hanging out with a flying squirrel.