In Search of Moose

In Search of Moose
Into the Wilds with
Rocky Mountain Field Seminars

By Frank Martin

As if on cue, majestic moose regularly make their appearance off Trail Ridge Road on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park as if it were time for their early-evening curtain call. They stand off some 50 yards, gawking back at summer tourists who scramble for parking space along the highway and rush out of their vehicles armed only with cameras.

But actually hiking back into the moose territory of the Kawuneeche Valley in search of these 1,000-pound, floppy-eared hulks might not be quite so easy. And, even if we do cross paths, what’s to stop one of these big guys from getting an attitude toward some 20 humans nosing around its home turf on a day-long wildlife seminar?

“Watch the moose,” cautions Kevin Cook, a prolific writer, naturalist and entertaining leader of our field trip. “If its ears go back like this, it’s in an aggressive behavioral mode. If it puts its head down, attack is imminent and you’re in trouble.”

If the ticked off animal should actually charge one of us, all we’d have to do is step to one side like a cool, calm and collected matador with nerves of steel. “Of course, that’s easy to say and another thing to do,” he smiles.

But as the day wears on and we hike farther into the valley, the chances of spotting one of these creatures seems to be more and more remote.

Not that it hasn’t been interesting — and even controversial at times.

Titled “The Story of Moose,” this is just one of many fascinating Rocky Mountain Field Seminars offered by the Rocky Mountain Nature Association. The organization’s catalogue is packed with outdoor seminars on subjects like raptor ecology, wetlands of the Park, the history of Colorado’s Western Slope, mountain geology and a whole lot more.

But this excursion into moose country really piqued my interest. The animals here are Shirus moose, the largest species of wildlife in the state. They’re both majestic and funky, with humps over their shoulders and loose skin that dangles from their necks like a cow bell.

Cook explains all of this after we caravan to our first stop in the park and sit around a picnic table at the edge of a field dwarfed by peaks of the Continental Divide. The animals we hope to spot later in the afternoon chow down some 24 pounds of mineral-rich willow shoots a day. The males can have wanderlust and meander off great distances only to end up back in the same place. And they use those formidible antlers to strut their stuff — impressing the ladies and intimidating other males. “It's body language at a distance,” Cook says. “It's sizing up the opposition and sizing up the potential mate.”

Cook also graphically demonstrates that you just can‘t be too careful around wildlife when he reaches into a duffel bag and pulls out the weathered, somewhat gruesome skull of a big horn sheep. He sticks his index finger down into a deep hole left by an absyss on the jaw line. “This lady was in agony. She could not eat. She probably succumbed to starvation,” he says. His point is well taken: You just can't be complacent around wild animals. “They may be in pain and they may attack you.”

So much for wanting a tete-a-tete with a hulking moose that can use its antlers as a lethal weapon. But a glimpse from afar would sure make our day.

Cook stops at an an area of leafy green foliage, a vegetation study area that’s enclosed by a tall wall of wire fencing. But outside of the protected section, most of the vegetation seems to have been picked almost clean. Moose, with their hearty appetites, are largely responsible for this situation.

It’s been called a controversy without answers that began in the late 1970s when the Colorado Division of Wildlife transplanted 14 moose from Wyoming to Rand, Colorado some 20 miles northwest of the park. The moose from that original relocation now number about 1,600. Prior to that, wildlife experts like Cook argue that moose were never indigenous to the state.

We move on through open fields and shady forests and it’s readily obvious that Cook is a walking database of backcountry knowledge. At one point, he suddenly stoops down and picks up a toadlet — one so tiny as to be all but invisible in the grasses; he holds it up, perched on his thumbnail, for all us to admire. When we come to a small mound of scat, he knows it came from a fox and it made its deposit yesterday. When he spots some discoloration on a tree trunk, he explains that its from a deer or a moose rubbing off the velvet growth that forms on the antlers. When we walk along a river, he points to moose tracks on the opposite bank.

Shortly after breaking out of the trees and into a large field, we see it. Seventy-five yards distant at the far end of the field is a not-so-little little, chocolate brown cow moose. She’s staring non-chalantly at us from afar while lazily chewing willows which she digests in her two-chambered stomach. Cook explains if this were a male he would not have a problem closing the distance by half; but a female like this could go on the defensive if she had a baby calf nearby.

“That is not a terribly concerned animal,” says Cook with a broad smile, seemingly relieved that he’s finally delivered the goods for our day-long outing.

The moose just stares back at us and her ears bend in our direction and flick around to listen for a chipmunk moving around in the grass. And then, Cook observes, her ears just relax as if to say, “Life is good.”

Yes, indeed.