Moose in our Back Yard

My husband and I spent last week at our home in Fairbanks, Alaska. We felt privileged to see a gorgeous display of the Northern Lights from our deck one morning at 2 am. (We keep to Eastern time so Jim was up that early.) A couple of days later we saw a cow moose and her calf feeding at the edge of our back yard. The next day we had a cow moose graze in our lawn for several hours, coming right up against our deck at one point. I was glad that our deck is on the second story, comfortably out of reach of any animal.

We have some friends in Alaska who are native Alaskans and they tell us that their native diet was primarily salmon, with some moose meat also.  They tell how summers the whole family would go and live in a fish camp, where they caught and prepared fish for the winter. Their native village can only be reached by airplane or boat. I would like to go there some day.

Moose are members of the deer subfamily. They are the largest and heaviest of the still living species of the deer family. They are distinguished  by the broad, open-hand shaped antlers of the males. Other members of the deer family have antlers with twig-like shape. Moose are not herd animals as are most deer species. They are solitary animals but the calves may stay with their mothers for up to eighteen months. They are generally slow-moving and sedentary, but they can become aggressive if angered or startled.