A Bull Moose (Alces alces): The Biggest, most Dangerous Animal in my Yard

Yearling Bull Moose (Alces alces) with spike antlers taken
in my backyard on February 6, 2012.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

Sometimes I have to go to great lengths to find the animals that live in my yard, but when a bull moose (Alces alces) walks through the yard within 50 feet of the house, it's pretty hard to miss. This moose is definitely male, because it has antlers. Female moose do not grow them at all. Bull moose actually shed their antlers and regrow a new set each year.

The little spiky antlers on this moose tell me that it is almost certainly a yearling moose. Yearlings may keep their antlers later in the season than their more mature brethren who may drop their antlers around December. February or even March is not too unusual a date to see such a young moose still carrying last year's beginner antlers. You can tell that these are antlers from the prior season rather than newly developing antlers by the lack of velvet covering over them. In the pictures, the antlers of the moose that was in my yard appear hard and bony.

Moose Antler Growth

Bull moose showing developing antlers with brown velvet
feeding on aquatic plants in Errol, NH in July, 2011.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2011.

They would start out as buds around the end of April and begin growing with a brown, fuzzy covering called velvet. The velvet peels and gets scraped off on trees to relieve the itching as the antlers get ready for rutting season. The picture below shows a bull moose in July with his antlers coming in. The velvet shows clearly. You'll also notice that even though they are not nearly finished growing for the season, they are clearly going to be much, much fuller than those of the moose from my yard. This shows that the bull moose in the picture I took last summer in Errol, is older. You can see the full video of this adult male moose eating here. According to the New Hampshire Fish and Wildlife Service (NH F&G), the antlers of a mature moose may weigh 40 pounds.

Bear Killers

Even though it is still young, the yearling moose stands 6 feet tall at the shoulder and about eight feet tall overall. Moose are big animals. Already, this moose weighs more than a typical full grown black bear. During the fall mating season when it is full of hormonal aggression, it is also more dangerous than a black bear. The most dangerous moose, however, is the female with a young calf. They are fiercely protective and can not tolerate any creature physically getting between them and the calf. The NH F&G website claims that female moose have been known to kill not only people and black bears, but also the larger grizzly bear while defending their calves. These are very dangerous animals.

Although a female moose isn't as big as a male, an average adult moose weighs 1000 pounds and big bulls may go as high as 1500. The North Country News says that the largest female moose taken by hunters in New Hampshire was about 1100 pounds estimated live weight, while the largest bull taken in the Granite State would have tipped the scale at an estimated live weight of 1400 pounds.

Bull Moose trotting off down into the forest in my
backyard.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

That makes the moose the biggest wild land animal not just in my yard, but in all of New Hampshire by a wide margin although cattle may weigh more. Despite its great size, moose are vegetarians eating leaves twigs and buds of trees during the winter and aquatic plants during the summer. Their noses close up to prevent water from getting in while they stick their heads underwater to graze.

There is a large marshy area in the valley below my house, perhaps a mile and a half away. This would be ideal summer grazing territory for moose while the forests make good winter habitat. Moose are excellent swimmers. Having watched one swim across a lake, I think I'd be pretty hard-pressed to out swim a moose for very long. On land, however, there's no question; the moose easily wins with a running speed that can top out around 35 miles per hour.

Moose Scat



Old moose scat from the woods at the back of our property
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2011.

 About a month ago, I found moose scat down on the back part of my property, but it appeared to be at least a year old. Because it contains mostly woody material from the moose's winter diet, moss was actually growing on it. It looks a bit like compacted sawdust. Each pellet is about an inch long, much bigger than deer pellets. When we first moved here about 4-5 years ago, I saw a very young moose crossing the road about five miles away and we have seen moose tracks in the snow within a mile of our house, but this is the first time we've seen a moose on our property. Here's a video I took of a very young moose with its mother in Northern Maine.

The two depressions behind the print on the left are from
the dew claws of the hind foot of the moose.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

After giving the moose in my yard a head start of about an hour, I followed its tracks through the woods in my backyard for over a mile onto a neighbor's property and into a protected wilderness area on the other side of that. I was curious to see where it went, but couldn't devote the entire day to following it; perhaps another time. I did find one hair from the moose's coat stuck on a tree branch that it pushed aside as it walked through the forest. You can see from the photo below that it is much thicker than a human hair placed next to it for comparison.

Moose tend to be solitary creatures. With the exception of mother and calf, and during the rutting season (mid-September to mid-October), they will most often, though not always, be spotted alone.

Moose hair on right,
human hair on left.
Photo by Brad Sylvester.
Copyright 2012.

Moose Tracks

Moose tracks are also big. They tend to have obvious dew claw marks in the snow, especially on the rear feet. The tracks from the moose in my yard measured six inches long without the dew claws, nine inches with them. They were 5.5 inches wide. Like deer prints, if the moose is running or trotting then the front part of the hoof will tend to be splayed open with more space in between the two halves.



The red arrows point to the dew claws at the back of
each hoof. The dew claws of the rear feet tend to show
up more prominently in the moose tracks.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012.

 The stride of this moose varied from about three feet to about seven feet between prints depending upon the speed at which it was traveling. The rear prints tend to fall directly on or very near the front hooves, leaving a track pattern not unlike the one that a person would leave with left and right prints alternating.

Quick Facts about the Moose (Alces alces):

Diet: Moose eat twigs, leaves and buds from trees, especially during the winter. In the summer, they prefer grazing on aquatic plants pulled form the bottoms of shallow lakes, rivers and marshes.

Habitat: Forest and marshland.

When is it here? The moose lives in New Hampshire all year round, but may move from forest to marshland depending upon the season.

Home range: From 1-25 square miles according to NH F&G.

Where does the moose go during the winter? The moose will forage in the forest or at the forest edge during the winter. It is not bothered by cold, unless its coat is damaged or worn off by scratching (such as might be caused by a tick infestation).

Life Cycle: Moose mate from mid-September to mid-October. 1-2 calves will be born in late May or early June. The calves are cared for by their mother for about a year. Females are ready to mate during their first year while bulls take a few years to grow big and strong enough to challenge for the right to mate by clashing antlers with other rutting males.

Moose Lifespan: Moose typically live 10-15 years.

Moose taxonomy:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Cervidae
Subfamily: Capreolinae
Genus: Alces
Species: Alces alces