Of Moose and Men

By Sutton R. Stokes, 1-20-08

Last Sunday, an FWP (Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks) bullet brought an end to the story of the rampaging moose. I was sad to read of the death of this animal, but the facts of the case make it hard to see any alternatives.

The Missoulian quoted an FWP statement describing the moose as being “in poor condition” with “virtually no body fat.” It appeared that the moose had gone blind and so was sticking to the trails rather than try to navigate through underbrush and dense snow. This brought the animal into contact with what must have seemed mysterious enemies that it could only hear, and what could it have made of the growl of snowmobile engines and the ominous sh sh of approaching skiers?

I’ve always been interested in what the community has to say about items in the news; the newspaper letters page has always been one of my favorite sections. And letters pages here in Missoula are, in some ways, even more interesting than in larger-market papers, such as the Baltimore Sun, my former hometown paper. The difference, for me, is the ongoing conversation made possible by the relatively smaller readership and proportion of letters coming in. I really enjoy the back and forth that is possible as a result, not to mention the off-topic announcements and statements that appear from time to time as well. (I’m speaking of course of the letters pages of the Missoulian and the Independent; New West doesn’t do “letters,” per se, although you can always leave a comment or, if you want to submit a more general piece of writing, anyone can post in the Unfiltered section.)

The saga of the moose attracted a few letters, three that I can find, all in the Missoulian. The first letter — responding to early reports of the moose’s transgressions — ran on January 8, by which time the poor animal had only five sunrises remaining. Letter writer Sara Boyett of Ovando argued that the moose was “fed up with human intrusion into her [sic] habitat” and wondered if snowmobilers “couldn’t… just avoid that area for a while.”

“So she kicked a snowmobile and wouldn’t move,” wrote Boyett. “That shouldn’t get her [sic] the death penalty.”

Roann Schott, whose letter appeared January 15th, agreed, writing that the FWP’s “first obligation should be protection of the wildlife and banning the snowmobiles.” Schott wondered “why… we consider wildlife ‘wild,’ yet expect them to treat humans with non-aggressive acts when we are clearly intruding on their territory… ?”

Carter Young’s opinion was that “the killing of the bull moose in the Canyon Creek area last Sunday by the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks was about as short-sighted as the moose had apparently become” (January 17). Arguing that the moose “had a right to live in the national forest and do what moose do,” Young worried that “by killing the moose — and presumably carting the carcass away — the state deprived forest predators and scavengers of quite a bit of feed.”

All of this concern for the fate of one unfortunate moose reminds me of the book Life of Pi, in which the main character, a zookeeper by trade, speaks in favor of zoos by pointing out how unpleasant it is to be an animal in the wild: always hungry, always something to be afraid of. And obviously the moose in question had it worse than most.

Nonetheless, while it’s a mistake to talk of what an animal “loves” or “wants” (people who are fond of rhapsodizing over an animal “running free” sometimes seem to be overlooking that it is often “running from” something else), forgive me for assuming that the moose would have liked things to turn out differently. Not going blind would have helped. A person who goes blind has options; a wild animal can only stagger around and wait to die or be killed. For a moment it’s possible to pretend that the moose would have wanted it this way — to be put out of its misery, that is — until you remember that life has a funny way of justifying its own continuation, even as it dwindles away to almost nothing.