September 28, 2008

moose?


a neighbor approached my father saturday morning to get another opinion of "what" made the tracks through his yard earlier that morning. what we saw were huge split hoof tracks, some of which also had the impression of the dew claws. the space between the tracks was also leading these experienced in animal track hunters to believe that it had to be a moose. The only suspicion to the contrary is if the tracks had come from a cow. Quickly though it was determined that there arent any cows being raised in our immediate vicinity. the neighbor was able to follow the tracks through his backyard to where the tracks went back into the woods. we determined which way this animal went, grabbed the camera and headed for the canoe trail and pole line behind my house. on the trail we quickly spotted one place where this big guy crossed an open area and continued back into the woods. once on the wooded canoe trail I didnt see anymore signs of him. my father had split from us and we didnt see him for about 2 hours. apparently he was a better tracker and followed the tracks all over the riverbank. he concluded that the animal got close to the river, decided againt crossing there and continued wandering. it most likely was a moose and as of saturday afternoon was still on our side of the hudson. very cool. i wish we could have gotten a peek at him. apparently, we are in the middle of the moose's "rut" season where they are known to wander in all sorts of areas such as communities and roads in search of a mate. the moose population in the adirondacks has grown to a self sustaining rate. apparently one of them wanted to explore the southern most part of the park.

2 comments:

Ellen Rathbone said...

OH, yes - that's definitely a moose track - no doubt about it. I, too, have tracked them to no avail. I haven't even found a moose scat in the woods yet. Someday...

corin said...

Thank you for the second opinion. They were hard to distinguish in the soft dirt. I did look for scat as we were tracking...geez, when do they go to the bathroom?

Thanks for checking out my posts. I always enjoy reading yours.