A 70-year-old Alaska man who was attempting to take photos of two newborn moose calves was attacked and killed by their mother, authorities said Monday. (Hey it wasn't in Florida!)

Think he would have known better?

Alaska man killed by moose protecting newborn calves | AP News

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Still Running Against the Wind

Darwin list material.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

A decade ago I was bushwhacking through the trees on an old abandoned railroad pass at around 10,000’ when I caught a movement off to my right. I assumed it was a deer or elk. It’s was a moose with a calf traveling the same direction I was and when she saw me she turned and trotted towards me (***!) I was running forwards and backwards weaving through the aspens thinking hey I’ve read about this lol. I had no idea there were moose up there! Across the valley is a ski area that just this year has had moose showing up on the slopes. That could get interesting.

You would think an Alaska native would know better. That's like a Nevada native saying, "Ooh! Let's take this pretty snake home. Never seen one that makes rattling noises."

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Release the Kraken

He shoulda worn a "Wossamotta U" t-shirt.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

The tragedy is he really just wanted to meet Rocky.

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The best I can with what I got

Dang, y'all are cruel. Nowhere in the article says they approached the calves at an unsafe distance, nor the mother. Per the article the photographers were looking for the moose, then running, when they were attacked (the way the sentence was written could also mean the calves were looking for the moose I suppose). I've taken plenty of pictures of moose from a safe distance, and I've had very close run ins/close calls with moose that I surprised, or surprised me. Shockingly quiet when they want to be.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what on earth makes the deceased a darwin award candidate, giving the info provided?

FWIW, I have read that moose kill more people in Alaska than bears.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

When my father went on a Moose hunt in Alaska he came back with some very interresting stories of how Moose can travel from point a to B in qiuck times.

The females legs are so long, that she can step over 50 yards of downed trees and bushes,
twenty times faster than we can and a Bull with a huge rack, just lays them on his back
and makes seven inch Quakies, sway back and forth, as he goes through them,
like we do tules, when duck hunting.

There is a reason they like living in that type of country.

I still don't know if a Moose is smart, dumb or just plain lucky?

We came upon this one while walking a trail in the Tetons. Stopped to take a pic and a few seconds later out of nowhere comes a park ranger.
She politely told us to back up quietly. We obeyed.
Those things are ornery and huge.

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Sure you did

A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli!

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Only a cold warrior

I was fishing off of a sandbar facing down stream and something made me turn around. It was a bull headed to where I was looking for something to eat. I finally waved my hands over my head and he stopped and stared for the longest time, maybe 20’ away. He finally turned and left the way he came.I’ve carried a gun when fishing there ever since then lol

Good thing it wasn't a llama!

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The best I can with what I got

While in Jackson Wyoming we came across three bull moose in a river just like that one. A lady proceeded to walk over the bank, down a 15 foot hill and take pictures at the waters edge.

The wife and I expected to see some action but they decided it was too much effort to say hello face to face.

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Came across a moose cow and calf a couple years back while fly fishing the Firehole River in Northern Wyoming. I very discreetly backed away and went another direction. The thought of taking a picture never even crossed my mind.

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Pack light and cinch tight.

I was expecting more to this story...maybe like..."Yep. It was at the 1972 New Year's Eve party at Moose Lodge #547 in Poughkeepsie, New York. The ol' guy was drunk...I mean, really blotto...falling all over himself. Anyway, he asked my sister to dance...and the rest is history."

Now...doesn't that sound better than just, "A moose once bit my sister?"

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Pack light and cinch tight.

I opened the range Sunday morning before my muzzle loader crowd started showing. I love it early on the river, right now all the birds are fussing over nesting sites, etc. Those little warblers making all that racket always make me smile. I walked down the line to the 200 and saw a mule deer doe duck down, thought it was curious. She waited until I was about twenty feet and stood up, did a little semi circle away but stood her ground. I walked up to where she was standing and saw the fawn in the bush...backed away immediately and left them in peace, young doe probably her first fawn, she was accompanied by a yearling. They are all healthy this year, its a good sign. Our range is a strange little pocket for mule deer, I have never seen a whitetail in over ten years there. If you go no more than three four miles away it s all whitetail. I prefer mule deer to those goaty whitetails.

They do. When you hit one with a car it tumbles right into the passenger compartment. Like hitting a Clydsdale at 55mph.

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No baby we aint

I was deer hunting several years ago. Walked up the creek a couple of miles. Heard some scratching noise coming from a tree close by, it was a cub Black bear climbing the tree. As I didn't have bear tag and females with cubs are not legal I back tracked very carefully. The old lady was there somewhere. Just remember this, the females of any breed of cats are vicious when defending their young.

My wife and I were with a friend who was elk hunting in interior BC. We weren't hunting. She was armed with a Nikon, me with a 12 ga. Mossberg. We heard some thrashing about quite a distance off and were soon joined by a bull moose looking for love. It approached us to within 20'. Our friend had him in his sights but the moose wasn't quite legal. After lots of hollering and waving the moose walked off.

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Dennis
SWCA #2409, SWHF #353

Taken from the safety of my deck last summer

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Some collect art; I shoot it!

Outdoor Life and Field and Stream were where I experienced moose as a kid. Still think them to be awesome.

I live on a big lake with a large amount of feeder streams and 1 good size river. We tend to get Moose's up here. In fact one was captured by camera a couple years back on the road about 200 yards from my property.

Our state Encon has been known to release problems Moose's on a local mountain that is the highest point in Saratoga county. Many times it does not take them long to put many miles distance from the release spot! State many times puts trackers on them!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

They’ve done well in Colorado. The first group of a dozen or so were released in north park in the late 70s with lots of publicity.There have been quite a few more releases over the years that weren’t publicized to protect them from poachers.It throws you to trip over moose in areas you’ve never seen them in.They’re quiet and sneaky and usually in thick underbrush.Some of them are downright mean!

I guess it depends how one defines an "unsafe" distance. Having dealt with Alaskan moose myself, I define it as nowhere near them. If momma is upset, you're not outrunning her.

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SWCA #3356, SWHF#611

At 10,000' I would be so sick a chipmunk would be able to trample me to death. I had to work a project in NM that was 7500' and that one almost killed me. I'm to accustomed to my Champlain Valley 200'

Look up the Volvo and Saab "moose test". That's why their cars even back in the 70s had A-pillars like RSJs.

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Release the Kraken

Down on the river where our rifle range is located we have moose wandering through quite often, if you see one during the day you can be certain there were more filtering through dawn and dusk. This guy swam directly across the river towards us last year.

NPS rec is 120ft. Again, nothing in the article says anything about wrongdoing on their part.

I would multiply that safe distance by a lot. I see a lot of moose and if I see one within a quarter mile I am going the other direction. They do not like dogs and are known to charge a dog/wolf, who if smart enough retreats to master, who promptly gets run over. Don't be that guy.

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Some collect art; I shoot it!

Thirty years ago I lived in Idaho Falls, and I used to hunt about ten miles outside Yellowstone.

The only time I ever rattled antlers to call a deer I got way more than I bargained for.

I was sitting with my back to a small hill. I had a deer tag, and was armed with a T/C Contender Super 14, in .35 Remington. My back-up was a Springfield Armory 1911 .45 ACP. I started rattling, not even having a clue about what I was doing, but hoping I was doing it right. After about ten minutes I saw movement up ahead of me. Then, about fifty yards away, a great big bull moose came out of the bushes looking in my direction! Then another bull , then a cow! Three moose looking in my direction! I thought, "Oh, ****!" So I stood up, let them see me, and started hiking up and over the little hill I had my back to. Thankfully, they didn't follow.

I've seen a few since then, in Idaho and Alaska, but that was my only "close encounter".

I watched a guy almost get stomped by an elk in the park, but never saw any close encounters involving moose or bison.

If he got stomped by a moose, then, indeed, he was at an unsafe distance.

Paul Pavlik was an old Polish fellow that I played golf with and he has many Pavlikisms.

This one fits... When you are dumb, you suffer

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

What would’ve happened if a moose bit a llama ?

Sorry
Couldn’t resist

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15 Days to Flatten the Curve

The last time I was at Yellowstone Park, there was a Japanese father trying to position his wife and two small kids in front of a baby Bison so he could get the "perfect" travel photo. I didn't see the baby Bison's mom but I drove-on, not wanting to see what happened while the Bison mom appeared!

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Bill

People do goofy things. One of my sisters,who I’d swear knows better, approached a bull elk in town at the height of the rut to say hello!
The bull charged and a woman driving past pulled her car between sis and the bull.She’s a strange girl,my sis

Locally a senior guy with Fish and Game was fatally gored by a young spike buck quite a few years ago, they were being transported for some reason and the older man got into the chute in an effort to guide the deer into a new enclosure, the buck felt threatened lowered his head and charged, the guy bled out before they could medivac him. That thought crossed my mind a couple years ago when I approached a big five point mule deer buck at the range, I walked out of the clubhouse and started walking towards him wondering how close he would let me get...well sir he let me get within twenty yards before I actually had the realization that he probably outweighed me and wasn't too awful scared, he turned and walked off about the same time I was thinking about the fact that he could have stomped my old butt into a mudhole.

"The attack happened as the two were running away...
The second man, who has not been publicly identified, was uninjured."

Because he was faster and left him. With friends like that...

The age old joke, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you..." was never more true than in this case.

Mine was bitten by a Shriner.
No joke.

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I told you not to use Lifebuoy

Doesn’t matter how close they were or weren’t. Leave moose alone! Heck everyone knows that.

I learned when I was a boy to leave them alone. Threw a snowball at mother moose and she came after me and my buddy. My buddy got trampled. But thankfully no serious injuries.

That’s almost as stupid as taking the family dog on a hike in bear country.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

This thread is sad in so many ways. Also, enlightening. I saw a mama deer stand up to my dog and she retreated like a scared rabbit! Last year about this time, actually. Her newborn was on the other side of the fence. Angel chases them out of the yard; she thinks she's a tough cookie but not with a newborn around! She did catch one by the back leg because it ran to the corner where it couldn't jump the fence. She was lucky the deer got away. No moose around here, yet.

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There's a Monster on the loose

I had a cow moose follow me down a ridge at a bit over 10,000 ft South of Cody It was a spooky thing. I just had a feeling something was stalking me. stopped in a clump of trees. Sure enough a couple minutes later she came out of a thicket. She had a 1/2 grown calf with her. It was a eerie feeling to be stalked by a critter. I know she was following me as I had spooked her 15-20 minutes previously. Even the Shiras moose are pretty large animals...but nothing like an Alaskan moose

Shame. we do not learn to leave those critters alone. At 70 though, he presumably already made any contributions to the gene pool and the saga may continue if the lesson was not learned.

Wife, daughter, and I were vacationing in Greenville, ME one year, and about dusk we were heading back to our motel. I spotted movement off to my right, and saw a huge bull Moose coming out of a stand of trees. I stopped our van and the bull walked across the road right in front of our van. It was huge and was taller than the van. I did get video of it as it crossed the road and walked into some trees. Very impressive.


We always saw Moose when in the Greenville area. Went up to Baxter State Park one year, and hiked to a lake in the Park. There was a female Moose standing in the lake munching on the vegetation. Several people were there set up with cameras and video recorders photographing her.


We were about 100 yards away from her, and she did not appear concerned about the people watching her.

We saw a moose at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain NP last week. As some...um...morons stumbled their way down a steep slope towards it, I just slapped a 2X teleconverter on my 70-200 F2.8 lens and shot away from the front seat of our rental car.
Life is hard. No sense in making it any harder (or more dangerous)!

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paws for friendship

Several years ago I was Elk hunting in Area 17 in Colorado. Walking up a thin trail I could see legs ahead. The trail turned into the legs and as there was no way to get off the trail in another direction I so opted to continue. Went around the corner and came face to face with a large cow. No little ones I could see, but at 8 to 10 feet I wasn't looking too hard. Looked at the cow and said " Good morning Ma'am. " Looked straight ahead and kept walking. It was around 20 degrees outside and for the next 100 yards I was sweating rivers. Looked back and She was still watching. Told My old hunting Buddy about the encounter that evening and He told Me I was lucky. He was right.

I can confidently say that if one gets injured by a wild animal, especially one that is not a predator, you were too close by any measurement. I have watched moose and elk at a distance, and they are impressive, but no way on this earth do I want to find out the hard way what "too close" is.

We did a family vacation in Yellowstone in 2003. They have videos in one of the buildings of people being tossed by bison. One ended up approximately 20 feet up in a tree, with a rough landing a few seconds later. I like to learn from and then avoid the mistakes of others.

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NHI, 10-8.

There’s a group on Reddit-Find the sniper. Lots of pix of moose in thick cover and they’re very hard to spot