About a month ago Kita said there was something interesting up the road. Ben, Kia and I walked out to see what was up. About 2,000 feet down the road Kita led us up into the woods for a couple hundred feet. Low and behold, her discovery was a dead moose. I didn’t see any obvious signs of what killed it and there was food in its digestive track so I doubt it starved to death.
I don’t have enough knowledge about how teeth indicate age but perhaps someone else can comment.
I took these photos this week, after the flesh had been mostly cleared away. Someone large, perhaps the black bear, had dragged the hide and one leg out from under the remaining skeleton. It had moved that about 15 feet away before abandoning the effort. There isn’t much left to eat so that was a rather desperate move to put in so much effort to move a couple of hundred pounds of skin and bones. I doubt anything smaller than the bear or catamount could have dragged those items out from under the skeleton.
See Ode to Melvin the Moose for a followup on this.
39째F/33째F Overcast, Light Rain
I always find it so amazing to see how nature takes care of the dead. I suppose that’s morbid but it reminds me that in the natural world there is no waste.
This serves as a reminder to me that we should always floss when we brush.
wow, now that’s impressive.
Steph
Whoa, that beats our pig skull!
Do you think the thing that dragged away part of the carcass/skeleton could have been a human?
Leslie, I don’t think it was a human. What ever it was that dragged a leg and the hide only took it a short distance and what it was taking would be the least interesting portion to a human is my guess. I think more likely it was a hungry bear just waking from sleep and then it gave up either because it decided it wasn’t worth the effort or it got scared away – the road is just a bit down the hill and the town was grading it this week.
I don’t see the antlers in these photos. Were they at the site? I truly enjoy your blog.
Kristianna, It is the wrong season for the moose to have antlers. They shed them each year and regrow them. You can see the antler attachment point in the far right edge of the photo of the skull. This is what cued me into the fact that it was a male.
holy moly
Thankgoodness I ate breakfast before I visited this morning ;-)
How funny, it looked like dinosaur bones at first glance. I put a link to your blog on mine today. Long overdue.
Grandson like this photo. Said you lived in a cool place! LOL