Herding Moose In Spenard, Bears Downtown & Beware of the Beavers

Let me start out by saying, Moose are dangerous animals. Cows with newborn calves are very protective of their calves and you should always be cautious around them.

Now for my tale of how myself and a neighbor got involved in herding a calf back to it's mother. Plus, there's a few pictures.















Earlier in the am, while my son's and their friends were outside playing, I saw a large moose down the street. The boys did too and all came in. Several of my neighbors were outside taking pictures and looking at something else. From around the corner came a very young calf looking for it's mother several houses down and out of sight. These neighbors were able to direct/herd the calf towards it's mother and the calf began to follow along with it's mother.

As they got closer to my house, I decided I'd like to get a few pictures from a safe distance. Well, I get outside and there's the calf on the side of a house, staring at a small picket fence making little grunting noises. Mother had easily stepped over the fence, leaving her calf and was now laying in the neighbors backyard, completely disregarding her calf's distress calls. I 'm sure I've used a similar technique with my boys, but I'm not a mother with a newborn. I don't why she wouldn't react to these calls. I know they sure made me want to help.

So, a neighbor got the gate open when the calf had walked away and we proceed to herd the calf back in by just being present with our arms out wide.

When we finally herded the calf into the yard, the calf went to another corner of the yard and laid down for a nap.

Later in the day, they both reappeared. The calf tried to nurse 2 times while I watched but the mom grunted and moved away. The mother really seems to not be that interested in her calf. Hopefully, there will not be a sad ending to this story. Here's a link to a news article about what happens when the ending is sad, here in Anchorage.

It appears that we have black bear problems all over Anchorage. Todays paper has a story about a black bear that had started wandering around the down town neighborhood that several of my friends live in and is also the location of my son's school. Then there was the recent break in by a black bear ***Warning,bear dies***.

We also have beavers attacking dogs at a popular dog park.

And, this winter, we had a rash of wolf on dog attacks, some with very sad endings.

Despite living in an urban environment, nature is all around us. Sometimes it's cool, sometimes it's dangerous.

UPDATE ON MOOSE: They hung around all night in the neighborhood, and when I went out to water flowers the next day, one of my straw flower plants had vanished. It went to a good cause.