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August 31, 2008

Moose have come a long way

By DENNIS APRILL

If you drive west (or east) on Route 3 in Franklin County, you will see some new signs warning of possible moose crossing the highway.

In the Sugarbush Hill area, there was a major collision involving three vehicles and a moose last spring. That area, which is near Loon Lake, has been a moose hot spot for years.

One reason is habitat; the moose seem to like northern Franklin County, making it a nuclear hub from which the population has spread to outlying areas such as west to Santa Clara and south to Taylor Pond-Union Falls in southwest Clinton County.

Also, moose, like all ungulates (members of the deer family), love salt, and highways that have winter salt run-off like Route 3 and farther west Route 30 south of Malone will be, as moose numbers increase, good places to see these big animals. But the problem is observing them safely.

By late September, the rut will have started and bulls will range widely in search of a cow moose; their travels often take them across major highways. In the North Country, a bull moose could show up anywhere, including the City of Plattsburgh.

Drivers should be aware of the consequences of hitting a moose. Banging into a deer could take out a front end.

But hitting a moose broadside, because of its long legs, can cause it to flip sideways onto the hood, then into the front seat -- a very dangerous scenario.

No one knows how many moose are in New York state, but the estimate of upwards to 500 could be correct, and if our moose numbers continue to grow like Vermont's did in the 1980s, our numbers could double in five years.

It seems like a lot of writers today have latched onto the moose as a source for story material, so let me add mine to the mix. It starts almost 30 years ago.

Though they had been more frequent visitors to New York in the 1970s, moose never took hold, the new arrivals either being shot here illegally or just disappearing.

In September of 1980, a year after I did a college-related moose study in Vermont, the Press-Republican's Steve Manor reported on the travels of five moose that entered the area presumably from Vermont. One young bull that swam across Lake Champlain was illegally shot in Champlain. The cow accompanying it took off to the west and wound up in the Loon Lake area, a section of Franklin County, as mentioned earlier, that has since become a popular moose stronghold, where it lived for years.

In the early 1980s, with written permission from landowner Domtar Industries, I pursued moose north of Loon Lake along the old railbed, Wolf Pond Road and other logging roads. Of course, that gave me the excuse to buy an ATV -- a Honda Big Red three-wheeler -- that my wife, expecting our first child at the time, was none too thrilled about. But, she grew to like it, and I took her along, riding on a specially padded seat I rigged up (As I look back, I don't think we would ever do that again!).

We never saw a moose during those rides, but we did see tracks, and loggers also reported seeing moose, so we felt the moose were there to stay. Hunting clubs in the area, like the Wolf Pond Club and Camp Kettle, were particularly interested, the members keeping close tabs on the moose on what was their posted land.

Since those early days, moose numbers have increased significantly, not only on the old Domtar lands, now mostly state easements, but also throughout the North Country -- a good reason to drive carefully in places frequented by these very formidable creatures.

daprill2000@yahoo.com

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