The Wasilla Alaska Moose Story

Yesterday was the first morning of seasonal frost. It was gone today, like the first snowfall on the top of the hills near Wasilla end of July that reappeared a month later. Local moose began their fall behavior in mid September. That too will disappear fading into the past soon enough, so I will write a few words on that subject today.

The tent I lived in became part of the landscape for the resident moose. They sought a refuge from the noise of the street traffic enjoying a sanctuary from distant wolves and bear as well. Woodlands within biking distance of the city still existed as refuges for a few, mostly female moose.

Wasilla was a good place to raise young moose twins. Female moose are not hunted and when no dogs or poachers are about are fairly safe. They browse on abundant grass, leaves and succulent spring and summer growth, rather territorially remaining in a given area. The young moose born in spring follow along as they gain weight before their first winter when eventually the available plants will be lower branches of deciduous trees and perhaps emergent bushes from the fall.



I believe I have read that moose have a brain about the size of a dog or cat much used for processing food in multiple stomachs. They have a certain curiosity about people and as deer are a bit too trusting, yet as short lived creatures they are somewhat naïve as well.



After a month or so of living near the center of the resident moose habitat and not presenting a threat the female moose and following young ones seemed to regard me as a curiosity. They went about their usually daily food smorgasbord keeping a respectable margin of distance.

The moose eventually seemed to enjoy grazing in the area near the tent. I got several good photos with a cell phone I will post someplace eventually. Yet then the rutting season arrived. It provided an opportunity to consider female moose behavior and that of the Bull Moose as well.

In the area of the city with settlements and homes scattered throughout the area forest, and with an abundance of roads and four wheeler ATV’s a bull moose’s rack (horns) is something of a ‘target notice’ in hunting season. There are far more female moose residing near Wasilla than male. That made me think about natural selection as well. Instead of larger, dominant Bull Moose procreating most, the moose would require smaller, stealthier, smarter Bull Moose able to hide like ninja from human hunters.

The female moose run the risk of becoming nun moose (no risk of Lesbianism) in these near city forests. Safe from hunters and natural predators they run only the risk of failure to get pregnant as Bull Moose are decimated and fail to reach the female sanctuaries near the cities. I was a little curious if any moose would make it through the gauntlet of hunters and poachers that shoot near cities with sub-sonic or muffled rifle loads near dark to have hours to process and remove the game before any potential investigation.

A smaller buck moose did eventually arrive in the forest. Its rack was not so large, and it fled at my approach. It was of course interested in the females of the forest one or two of which hung about my tent seeming to use me as a sort of de facto competition for the buck moose. Only when it overcame its fear of being near the tent where the females found their competition for the buck did the buck moose eventually score.

That was last Saturday night. Near dusk in the nearby forest the occasional groaning sounds as the buck tried to mount the almost larger female that broke off as the female ran off over the prior two or three days gave way to obvious female moose sex moaning. The sound remains me a little of a braying donkey.

The female was lucky to get any sort of buck to make it throw a wall of certain death. Even that survivor would be short-lived. Female moose may keep up the large size while the males are down-sized. Neither are moose terribly bright. The females want the large head-butting simple mindedness as an evolutionary survival characteristic for producing large, healthy offspring while today its the thoughts that count.

Yet even human beings experience similar evolutionary challenges like the moose. Female moosiness traits exist for human females too as the Robert Redford looking Shaquille O'Neal guy was regarded as a better prospect that a philosopher as small as Immanuel Kant.

In biological evolution the characteristics that produce the most offspring are reproduced. If intelligence for humans today recognizes that the human population doubling time has radically reduced between each doubling (requiring 200,000 years to reach the first billion, a hundred or so to reach the second and so on to wher we approach 8 billion) and that no population growth for the time being would be wise-than evolutionary characteristic has little chance of being reproduced. So one might dev elop a pessimistic outlook on the next doubling of human population to 16 billion people that could in as few as twenty or thrity years. Neither would these be the brightest people in the world-yet warlike, desirous of extended life spans and encouraged by politicians to increase consumption of natural resources.

So the female with two twins from the prior year having got impregnated for another year supported a downsizing of the males perhaps with the survival instinct of flight from humans. Maybe the moose are doomed with the global warming and arrival of more coyotes to Alaska, wild dogs and motorized human hunters-that’s hard to say. As the largest member of the deer species though they aren’t at all difficult to live with around humans in numbers if not too quickly added to stew meat.

Moose serve the vital function of clearing undergrowth in suburban park lands that it’s too easy to run one’s eye on in the dark. Without large wild mammals in the forest the places seem rather empty.