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A GREAT TRUE LIFE ADOPTED BABY MOOSE ANIMAL STORY Posted: Dec 13, 2010 7:34 pm Last Updated: Jan 2, 2011 2:33 am 106,555 Views The below photo hung in my new dentist Peter Low's Bethlehem NH office. I talked briefly about it with him. He raises show horses and the man in the picture was an old Maine pulling team friend of his dating back some 40 plus years of annual State Fairs held in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Between a few research questions and my adult lifetime of nature explorations lead to the following story. A truly remarkable real life story of a Moose that was never named. So I called him the Miracle Moose of Maine. THE MIRACLE MOOSE OF MAINE Like just about all of the countless wild creatures born across America, Bethlehem's very own Doctor Peter Low’s Miracle Moose from Maine, was born in the early spring. This being not by mere accident, but rather by Mother Nature’s carefully designed plan that’s been scripted, in effect and time tested for thousands of age old centuries now! For this is the time of year when nature is at her most forgiving. Every creature whether wild or domesticated, need three basic things in order to be able to prosper, flourish and survive. These being food, shelter and safety! With the harsh difficult winter weather finally subsided and past, spring is the time of year for the annual miracle of new plant life to form and grow. Everywhere more friendly temperatures arrive and life itself starts yet another brand new wonderful annual cycle of growth and development. Mothers of all land species with the exception of bears, give birth in April or early May when new vegetation in the form of much needed feed, buds, blossoms and flowers grow either on the ground, on tree branches or even underwater in aquatic form. This certainly holds true here in New England. Perhaps a peek into the series of necessary events that had to happen and go against the usual laws of Mother Nature, to have a born in the wild Moose, display this type of amazing adopted conduct! In short form this moose was but a very young calf that somehow lost its mother and thus became orphaned! Not yet even weaned, its chances of survival were nil as moose do not herd like their smaller cousins the white tail deer do. Thus no other mother or cow moose would accept or bother with him. Left alone, it was destined for starvation, disease or a predator like a bobcat, eastern coyote or roaming bear. The chances are that its mother was a young moose and he was her very first born calf. I say this because he was wandering and all alone. Older cow moose usually give their second or third births to twin calf’s and sometimes even triplets. A sad event had to occur and only taking an educated guess at best , his mother and him became separated somehow. Perhaps she fled in panic due to a predator bear or rejected him which does happen to first born at times in the wild. His unwillingness to cross a high fast running spring stream or river is possible also. Disease though unlikely cannot be ruled out either as well as a moose car accident that happens hundreds of times yearly here in northern New England. In any event, the little guy was wandering and found by perhaps one of the only people around that could save his young life. He was a man with a working team of draft horses from what Dr. Low told me. A kind hard working man giving back and preserving nature and carrying out the rich tradition of caring for a very special species of animal that was instrumental in helping make America Great and what she is today. Before the transcontinental railroads, it was the serving in three capacities of being ridden, carrying pack supplies or pulling a wagon that allowed New Hampshire's very own Horace Greeley’s famous words " Go West Young man !" to come true. With decades of invaluable experience under his belt, this Maine animal farmer took this helpless animal under his wing and fed him from a nursing bottle. I'm sure a vet was called for some advice and most likely a few minerals and vitamins were added to the many hand held feedings during those first two months or so. It was surely a time of uncertainty as many factors now entered the mix. The young moose’s instincts to wander off in search of his mother. His performing a most difficult task which is called Imprinting. Imprinting simply being a new borns strong bonding with usually the first living and moving object it sees. Nature provides all land mass species with instant bonding to its mother! Again food, shelter and safety are mothers inborn gifts to their young ones survival. Ducks and geese when orphaned display this type of imprinting behavior as do a few other kinds of animals as well. But surely this little guy had seen his mother and most likely had never seen a human being in its young first early days of life. With a barn, hay , feed and the smell of horses, our little moose practically void of being taught anything, had to greatly rely on its most gifted sense. That being the sense of smell as moose have rather poor eye vision throughout their entire life times. Having spent a modest but small share of my over half a century of life out in the wild as an out doors man, hunter, fisherman and novice video photographer, I can personally attest to the fact that animals at times can and do some pretty remarkable things. For the most part, wild creatures do not really think or figure things out. They instead are born with natural instincts to get them through life. Cats and dogs know they don’t like each other and are born enemies. Yet under certain circumstances they adapt when choices are not available. So our little moose certainly had to experience some of the following: He had to quell his desire to roam and wander and stay basically put in one place. He had to alter his natural diet of wild plant vegetation and learn to eat and accept the grains Dr. Low told me he was fed. I'm sure over time, he would most certainly browse on plant life found around the farm or nearby woods. No doubt the draft horses and him accepted each other due to the physical elements of being constructed the same way. Four legs, build and same type of structure and comparative size. Smell acceptance is quite a bonding agent and also would have definitely taken place. At some point in time, most likely entering his second fall season, the horseman knew the time for him to go out into the wild had arrived. Mating instincts, the tendency to naturally roam freely, feed, antler development and the need to rub his massive antlers on both hard and soft wooded tall trees no doubt beckoned our miracle moose. Skeletal development uses up a great deal of feed minerals and only once it reaches its maximum size, do all members of the deer family start to grow so called trophy sized full antler racks. Thus until aged two and half, deer and moose here in New England have much smaller racks than their older male cousins. This is where this true life story starts to get very amazing. Our young moose now considered a by our standards. Has bonded so strongly with our horseman, his farm and other domesticated animals, it goes against all the basic laws of its hundreds of thousands of years of behavioral moose species existence! That Maine breeder and trainer I’m sure fixed up some kind of a sheltered stall or place for our miracle moose to bed in. Easily accessible and yet easy to leave so that it had its freedom any time it chose too. Yet when set free, this healthy well conditioned moose chose to live a semi domesticated life rather than take to the call of the wild as author Jack London so expertly coined. This was truly against all odds. A perhaps one in ten thousand event at the very least. He loved his life which by comparison to the testing year round elements of the wild was a much easier life to endure and survive within. No wandering in search of food! No harsh storms to get soaked and chilled in. Yes protective coats are indeed subject to breakdowns. No real tic problems or the well documented moose ear mites known to be quite common here in New England. No early winter freezing rain that became ice sheets that lasted and made ground browsing ten times more difficult than normal winters. No other testy larger and far more aggressive and powerful bull moose looking to bully and badger one far smaller and inexperienced in combative ways involved in the ways of claiming breeding rights. Had our aged moose become confused thinking he was a ? Well having stayed his entire life on that farm except for now and then nearby excursions of curious local exploring, he was a dang farm moose...... Yes a one of a kind example of yet another quite remarkable miracle courtesy of mother nature. Doctor Low and I both agree, he had to be fixed to produce this type of docile and friendly social acceptance and soft temperament behavior. Now his mission on earth was not to roam freely and hopefully to pass on his gene pool, but rather to of all things, perform domestic work never before reached in all the history of his moose kind. The picture proudly hanging is proof positive that our Miracle Maine Moose felt some kind of rare Love and understanding of his friends. He would walk uncharacteristically slowly besides the horseman’s hooked up teams. Moose in the wild are known to reach full lope jogging speeds of upwards to 30 miles per hour. On a hard packed but backwoods Maine dirt road north of Anson, Maine back in the late 1980's, I drove a ford pick up truck that a full grown bull trotted right out in front of. With crooked back legs taking surprisingly rapid and long strides, indeed my speed odometer read 25mph for a good hundred yards before he turned off and complete with six foot wide antlers disappeared into the thick lakeside forest and right out of sight. So the wise and well educated farmer decided that if he was so interested in his pulling team, why not give him the full opportunity to join it. Full domestication of a wild moose to pull a sled to lug fallen trees or heavy objects? This part I cant begin to imagine as these men you might see almost effortlessly handling a team at the Hopkington or Rochester State fairs annual pulling events, can communicate and understand there horses? Perhaps Dr. Low being quite an accomplished horseman in his own right, might far better explain. The end result of some very specialized one of a kind training netted this remarkable photograph. Fully fitted in the pulling harnesses including a mouth bit and reins. No doubt like his cousin horses, our Miracle moose had to have loved and welcomed this physical activity. From bottle feeding to being weaned and broken in on a semi foreign diet, to be trained to sleep in semi domesticated quarters on a regular daily basis, to have its breeding instincts eliminated, to achieve its size and weight far beyond normalcy is astounding. Fully grown mature bull moose here in the continental United states reach around an average weight of 1,100 pounds. Some exceed this reaching perhaps 1,300 pound exceptions. Our Miracle moose weighed in at an unbelievable weight of 2000 pounds. That’s a one ton of animal. Only the more hearty Alaskan species of bull moose reach that body mass weight. Surely Miracle moose was the largest moose ever to inhabit Maine during modern times. Also Dr. Low informed me that in the wild moose life expectancy is normally 12 years. I knew white tailed deer are expected to live five years. So our Miracle moose lived to age 15 or 25% longer than had he been in the wild. So as you view the remarkable photograph hanging in this office, understand that kindness, love, caring and determination can over come almost impossible odds. All of life is connected. Nature is the greatest element in all of creation. Our wild friends at times need care and a small degree of help! So feed the birds and creatures around you. Please adopt a pet destined to have only so much time left if you don’t!! This story was written by me for my his dentist Dr.Peter Low of Bethlehelm N.H and my now daily growing online blog readers as well. PS He did a wonderful job on my new dentures. Simply food for thought! Dan M. 03561 from a blog of mine 8 some years ago. 
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There are endless events depicting unusual formed bonds between man and so called wild animals. Most involve the element of fear being let go by animals that somehow sense kindness and good intentions by those two legged creatures they normally fear and avoid. The above event defies known moose behavior and a farmer, horse trainer and pulling team logger and State Fair competitive showman!
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