The Horrors of the Outdoors

[Brigliadore]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
In Maine, don't camp on a moose path.

That reminds me of another camping around wildlife story. When I was about 12 my dad took the whole family camping just outside of Jackson Hole,WY. There was a family of moose that would come into the camp sites to look for food and according to the Ranger lick the grills after people had cooked on them as they liked the salt left on the grill. We had been there about an hour when a cute baby moose wandered into our camp site. It walked right up to me and started to sniff me. Because I was young and didn't know any better, I started to pet the cute baby moose. Enter Mom moose who took one look at me petting her baby and decided she wasn't going to have any of that. Mom moose let out a huge bellow and the proceeded to charge me at full speed. I ran for my life, and let me tell you I have never run so fast in my entire life. I flew over fallen tress, over rocks, and covered some serious ground. Eventually I got to the river. At that point I jumped down the bank, into the water, and bounded to the middle of the river where there was some rock sticking out of the water. I stood frozen, listening, waiting to see if I was still being followed. About 30 seconds later Mom moose came crashing trough the trees and skids to a stop on the river bank. We stared at each other for a good minute, each deciding what our next move would be. At that point Baby moose caught up with us and came over to his Mom's side. She looked at me, looked at him, looked back at me and then let out a snort and proceeded to walk away. I stayed in the river for a few min. waiting for my heart beat to return to normal. Then I made the long trek back to camp, wet and out of breath from my run.

A few hours later the moose returned to our camp site, and that is when the photo below was taken. I was so afraid Mom moose would remember me, and try to kill me again. She had however lost her interest in me. I learned a valuable lesion about not petting baby animals, as you never know when their mom might be near by and take offense to it.