Moose with 4 calves causes stir
by Sue Deyoe ~ June 15th, 2009
The past couple of weeks there have been sightings of a moose traveling with 4 calves. Unusual, but not unheard of, the sight has caused residents to turn protective and concerned.
photo courtesy of Sharla
June 16th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
my guess is Mom moose was poached or died and this mom is fostering those twins…
thats the opinion of a former Alaskan of 20 years now living in Hawaii…. Aloha
June 16th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
This is awesome! My husband & I were in Alaska in March of 2007. We saw the start of the Iditarod and of course took a plane from Talkeetna Air up to Denali. More awesomeness. By the way we are from Minnesota. We took a couple of good pictures of moose but nothing like this mama.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Amazing. I live in moose county, too, in Maine. We love to see single moose, let alone a mama with four babies. My mom had four babies in all, but at four different times. I wonder if she is fostering some babies? Do moose do that? We should call her quatromoosemom!
I am never surprised at the love and devotion that mama animals, especially mammals, show their and others’ young.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Clearly this is a case of a Mom adopting orphans.
The two on the right are lager then the two on the left.
Warms the hear to see her do this. That means two more
darlin’s will survive.
June 17th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I’m from Maine and have seen this before. Mother has a calf and adopts
another one whose mother was killed. This mother took on quite a handfull.
The two on the right are clearly older.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:38 am
Rosalita and Carole wrote:”The two on the right are clearly older.”
Although the foster mom theory is a quite valid one, couldn’t the difference in size be attributed at all to the two on the right being further behind (or closer to the camera) the two on the left (further from the camera), giving the illusion that two are larger that the other two? Look at the shadows! The two on the left are almost even with mom (or mother-in-law), while the two on the right are markedly further behind mom.
Just an observation…
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
This moose hijacked her daughter’s calves. The dominant bull in the area will run off the male offspring after they split up with mom, but the cows stay. First time moms are not real secure in their child rearing skills, and sometimes their mother will take the calves. Usually the younger cow gets them back. Chances are the daughter, who is the mother of the two smaller calves, is not far away. I don’t think moose will suckle calves who are not the offspring of a daughter.