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Bull Moose Eating Swamp Carrots
Sometimes it pays to bushwhack a little to see if there are any birds to photograph in the small pond through the woods from the lake. When I got there, I slowly stuck my head up over the top of an old beaver dam hoping to see some interesting migratory ducks and instead a large bull moose was feeding on vegetation in the pond. It is quite unusual to see a moose this close to town, and it's been a few years since I've seen a moose anywhere. There are 60,000 moose in the Yukon but they are infrequently seen except in remote areas, bull moose seen even less because of heavy hunting pressure.
(Only First Nations people can shoot cow moose in the Yukon. Although some First Nation governments discourage this practice, aboriginal people in Canada have a constitutional right to harvest wildlife for subsistence, as determined by the Supreme Court. As might be expected, there are sometimes conflicts between wildlife conservation efforts and the exercise of aboriginal harvesting rights in Canada.)
Bull moose lose their antlers every winter and must grow new ones each summer. The subspecies of moose found in Alaska and the Yukon, Alces alces gigas, are the largest in the world, weighing up to 700 kg (1500 lbs). This guy was fairly large, probably weighing in the 500kg plus range. More images below:
Bull Moose Eating Swamp Carrots
Sometimes it pays to bushwhack a little to see if there are any birds to photograph in the small pond through the woods from the lake. When I got there, I slowly stuck my head up over the top of an old beaver dam hoping to see some interesting migratory ducks and instead a large bull moose was feeding on vegetation in the pond. It is quite unusual to see a moose this close to town, and it's been a few years since I've seen a moose anywhere. There are 60,000 moose in the Yukon but they are infrequently seen except in remote areas, bull moose seen even less because of heavy hunting pressure.
(Only First Nations people can shoot cow moose in the Yukon. Although some First Nation governments discourage this practice, aboriginal people in Canada have a constitutional right to harvest wildlife for subsistence, as determined by the Supreme Court. As might be expected, there are sometimes conflicts between wildlife conservation efforts and the exercise of aboriginal harvesting rights in Canada.)
Bull moose lose their antlers every winter and must grow new ones each summer. The subspecies of moose found in Alaska and the Yukon, Alces alces gigas, are the largest in the world, weighing up to 700 kg (1500 lbs). This guy was fairly large, probably weighing in the 500kg plus range. More images below: