I saw a moose yesterday

This is the bittersweet story of a my pursuit to capture of a photo of a moose that was seen south of Bemidji, Minn., yesterday.

Yesterday at work my coworker received a phone call that a moose was spotted in the backyard of an elementary school on the south end of Bemidji. I rushed over to the school and walked into the principal’s office.

“Hi, I received a call that a moose was seen outside your building, do you know anything about this?” I asked him. There was a moment of akward silence as he looked at me like I was a little crazy.

“We’ve had bears here, but no moose that I know of,” he said.

He turned around and opened the blinds to the window behind his desk. There were kids playing on the playground outside.

“Yeah, Okay, that’s what I thought,” I said. He laughed and wished me a good day.

As I walked outside and crossed the parking lot to my truck, I felt like a fool for getting all worked up about a potential moose in the area. Then noticed a line of people pointing towards the highway. I followed them and asked them what they were looking at.

“There’s a moose over there in the hay field,” said a man. “It’s headed this way!”

We stopped along Highway 71 and I looked for this mysterious moose which was presumably in a hay field across the road. I couldn’t see anything but round hay bails scattered throughout the field.

“Where is it?” I asked. No one seemed to know where it was, but they were very convinced they had seen one.

I noticed cars began to stop along side the highway and people were squinting their eyes in search of a moose that had been seen by someone, somewhere.

“Was there really a moose or were people going crazy?” I thought to myself.

Then someone shouted “There it is!”

Sure enough, there was a moose walking across the hay field about a quarter-mile away from where we were standing. “Wow! A moose!” I said. The moose had no antlers and looked healthy. No fur was missing from it’s coat, which was remarkedly shiney. It walked for a while and then it trotted. It never appeared panick-striken, but it acted as if it was wondering where it should go.

The moose was walking north towards a the Weidenborner’s residence on Washinton Avenue Southeast. I immediately regretted having such an incredibly slow point-and-shoot camera with a low battery. I wished I would’ve brought my own camera to work that day.

I ran down the ditch and onto the field. I knew I didn’t exactly have permission to cross the hay field, but others were doing the same. “It would be such a great shot!” I kept telling myself. Even an ambulence driver stopped along the highway to see what was going on. People from both sides of the field made efforts to get a little closer to the moose.

I followed the moose the edge of the field. I tried to take three photos of it before it dissappeared into the forest behind the Weidenborner’s property. I walked up their driveway and saw a woman and her daughter watching the moose.

“Hi! Did you get pictures? Did you see where it went?” I asked them. They directed me towards the back of their horse pasture. “Do you mind if I go back there and see if I can take a picture? I asked them. They told me to go right ahead.

Each step I took landed in a pile of horse manure, but I didn’t care. There was a moose in Bemidji and I was determined to see it up close. I crossed through a barbed wire fence and crept along an electric fence wire along a stand of small aspen trees. I could barely hear or see the moose anymore.

I stopped just I reached the end of the horse pasture. I wasn’t going to try and climb through the electric fence. I didn’t get my shot, so I didn’t have a story, but it really didn’t matter to me. The woman who lived at the residence was so kind to me and she shared some video footage she got of the moose. I thanked them and went back to the office.

It was an exciting day. It’s ironic – I wasn’t able to see a moose on my trip to Isle Royale National Park. Instead, I saw one within 10 miles of where I live. Some of my coworkers who have lived in Bemidji for a long time have said they’ve seen a moose before in this region. Others say they hadn’t seen a moose in 20 years. I feel lucky I was able to see one.

A cougar was found not too far from here

If you picked up a copy of Tuesday’s Bemidji Pioneer newspaper, you’d see the following headline: Motorist strikes, kills big cat.”

Here’s the story:

By Molly Miron, Pioneer Editor

About 10:40 p.m. Friday, a vehicle struck and killed a mountain lion on the Schoolcraft River Bridge on Carr Lake Road Southwest.

Blane Klemek, assistant area wildlife manager for the DNR, said biologists at the DNR Forest Wildlife Populations and Research Group have taken the mountain lion for examination. He said they determined the cat was a sub-adult male about 2 years old.

“I would agree looking at the animal on Saturday morning – the condition of its pelage, the condition of its teeth,” Klemek said.

The biologists will conduct a necropsy examination of the animal to determine whether it was an escaped captive or a wild mountain lion, he said. They will look for evidence of a collar, tattoo or tag that would indicate a captive animal. They will also examine the contents of its stomach and look for evidence of external and internal parasites. The biologists will also conduct DNA sampling.

“A captive cat would probably have a different parasite load than a wild cat,” Klemek said. “All signs seem to indicate that this particular animal was indeed wild but we don’t know that for sure.”

Klemek said the cat was in good physical condition when it was killed and weighed an estimated 110 pounds.

The cat had not been declawed as a captive mountain lion would have been.

The cat was first taken to the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office, then to the Bemidji DNR before going to the Grand Rapids wildlife research group Monday morning.

Klemek said the DNR frequently gets calls from people reporting mountain lion sightings, but the cat killed Friday night was the first to be confirmed. He said there had been a call earlier Friday of a sighting near Lehmann Park in South Lake Irving. It was probably the same animal that was killed that night, he said.

When sightings are reported, he said DNR officials investigate looking for prints, hair or other sign, Klemek said.

“It is believed that there is no breeding population of mountain lions in Minnesota,” he said. No sightings of mothers with kittens have been reported.

“They tend to be transitory males,” Klemek said. “Here’s a young male that’s trying to find his own territory.”

As an animal in an area possibly new to it, the cat could have been confused and unfamiliar with the territory, Klemek said.

Ruth Anspach, who lives across the road from where the mountain lion was killed, was one of the first people to approach the crash site.

“I couldn’t quite grasp that I was looking at a cougar lying dead across the street from my home,” she said in a release. “It made me a little nervous when I think of all the times that kids have played around the house and neighborhood.”

She said she was relieved to know the predator wouldn’t be a danger, “but on the other hand, it was such a beautiful and rare creature that it shouldn’t have had to die like this.”

 

Beltrami County Sheriff's Deputy Lee Anderson shows the mountain lion that was struck and killed Friday night on Carr Lake Road SW. Photo courtesy of Beltrami County Sheriff's Office.

Otter Signs

We took a hike to the north end of Spearhead Lake today. When we crossed the “otter bridge,” behold – we saw signs of otters. The bridge was dubbed the “otter bridge” by Dan Bera, who runs the Young Naturalist Program here in the summer. I never saw signs that otters were using the bridge until today. Okay, they may not really be using the bridge, but they’re around.

The scat is interesting and a classic example of what otter scat looks like. It’s clumpy and looks like hundreds of egg shell particles are on top. It also has a red hue to it. The white particles are bits of digested crayfish chunks. The red is also from the crayfish pigments. They must eat a lot of crayfish here – there was a lot of scat!

Otter scat found along the shore of Spearhead Lake

A daring red squirrel

There are several red squirrels that find the earth home front lawn a suitable place to scout for food and other wildlife to harrass, but this little red squirrel, who we’ve come to know as “Little Red,” is one of the most daring red squirrels we’ve come across here! Trust me when I say this little squirrel has tried everything to get into my squirrel-proof feeder. As for now it’s surrendered, but every now and then it makes its way up the tree for another look at it!

Meet "Little Red," the most curious, in-your-face red squirrel we've met on the property!

Happy Earth Day! Welcome back loons!

Hear the enchanting call of the loon as we hear it every morning!

We were impressed to find half the ice melted overnight yesterday, but even more surprised when we found our loon pair had returned!

We watched one of the loon pairs from our canoe