Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Tame Moose?

Is there such a thing, ever see one?

Actually pretty much so. Used to build house's in Alaska and we'd have moose come on the building site now and them. So long as the rut wasn't on they were like a bunch of dairy cows. Once the rut started yaa didn't really want to mess with them!

My uncle, now deceased, had a year old moose calf show up in his yard one spring. He figured the cow moose ran him off in preparation to calf again and the calf then decided to follow my uncle about. People would drive in and ask him he he knew there was a moose in his yard. He ignored the moose and it eventually left. For about a week it followed him as my uncle went about his day. This was about 15 years ago. I guess it had separation anxiety and needed company until it adjusted to its new situation.

Nick

What if you raised as a calf?

Theres at least one moose in my yard every day. They are used to people and pretty much ignore you unless you corner them or get too close.

Sure you could have a tame moose raised from a calf, like others said though they are still wild animals and should be treated as such especially during the rut.

Fake though lol

Has been done.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/canadian-stereotype-domesticated-moose-1.5369308

KB

Google" Moose used as work horses"

Moose have been used to pull logs, carriages, sleighs, etc. Apparently in the 17 century they were sometimes used in place of horses in the military in Northern Europe.

Moose have been trained to pull sleighs in AK.

Search returned this.

The one above is claimed to be fake, but this one seems real.

I have seen lots of pictures of people riding moose in the water. One famous one with Teddy Roosevelt. I find it hard to believe. I have some experience putting radio collars on moose while they are swimming for the MNR. If their feet aren’t on bottom and they are actually swimming they are rather easy to drown. Twice I have seen big cow moose with a calf hanging on with their front legs gripping the cow around her hips—it was all the cow could do to keep her head above water. I’ve talked to some of the old people locally—they used to hunt them by catching them in the water and throwing a blanket over their head. They drown fairly guickly.

photoshopped. wood piles are mirror images; spring foliage vs fall antlers,; and either that's a very tall moose or a very short guy. maybe some other indicators I am missing.

Well, maybe the tall/short thing is feasible, but to me, the proportions seem just a little off.

Wife and I subbed one Christmas vacation for the resident caretakers out at the Moose Research Center. Joel/AK knows where that is, as we once - sort-of- did some fencing there. I could go into the pen with the cows to fill the feed bunkers. Most of the cows were pen-raised and would crowd in on me like any domestic livestock will - the one or two not pen raised as calves would stand off a bit until I left. The cows would squeeze me in as I was emptying the sacks, and I treated them as I would cattle-cows - just forcibly shove their heads aside, and squeeze out between them.


One was named Melody and she was a banana freak. She would mug you (not too aggresisvely - more like a dog!) if you entered the pen with a banana. One day I waited until she was sandwiched in between two other cows at the bunker, feeding, and peeled a banana from 15 feet or so behind her. Her head snapped up, and she forcibly backed out to come get her banana. Funny! None of the other cows ate banana.

The 5 or 6 bulls were in another pen, and entry was forbidden. The feed bunker was loaded from outside the fence. Once they got about 5 years old, entering full maturity, their behavior became problematic, and even the biologists used extreme caution around them.

The heaviest bull on record was raised there as an orphan calf from Interior (the largest bodied of all moose) stock. They quit weighing him when he was 5, but at that time he came in (IIRC) about 5 lbs shy of 1700. I have to look that up again- it might have been 1800.

It's possible that there are or were "2,000 pound moose", but none have been recorded. The biologists at the MRC - some of them with decades of experience in weighing moose - would guess weights before putting the (trained to do so) moose on the scale, and told me they were seldom within 100 lbs. That record weight pen-raised bull had many advantages over his wild brethren, and may himself reached a ton later in life, but as said, they quit weighing him when he was 5. He also grew 50 inch antlers as a 3 year old, I think.

If someone tells you they killed a bull that weighed a ton or more, or got 900 lbs of meat off the kill..... well, he's probably a fisherman as well. He might have also killed the moose at 600 yards with a shotgun slug. Just nod. I've heard all of the above!

I saw a picture of this record bull at Cris Hunderdmark's retirement. Cris was writing on a clipboard, and the bull, probably 65 inches or better, was peering over his shoulder as if reading what Cris was writing. I wish I had that photo.

I have been processing moose for more than 50 years—had a processing shop on the Trans-Canada just west of Nipigon,ON. In 3 years I processed 161 animals 162 and finally 163 animals—my best years —early 90’s. Until recently always did about 100. Most guys did their own skinning and quartering and brought the 4 guarters to me. 2 largest bulls I cut-up on the same day—792 lbs and 760 lbs—4 quarters of meat. Both bulls shot standing together at South Bay on Lake Nipigon.
Heaviest moose I ever cut-up was 2 cows both weighed 832 lbs —4 guarters of meat. Cut-them up 12 years apart but both cows shot off same ridge where it crosses the Camp 81 road.
Moose racks are awkward damn things to carry very far and look very heavy—but their not. Heaviest rack I ever weighed was 36 lbs and it was 67 inches wide with 14 inch wide palms and heavy palmated brow tines.

The antlers are hard Karl, I've bumpet my head on one.

Yes. Have some pics somewhere of Cookie standing beside one at Alaska's moose research facility.

A person was pretty safe around an individual. With two or more around, it could get interesting, as they often don't care for one another.
Sterling link

The largest bull I ever paid to have cut up was 986 pounds, skinned and cut into 4 quarters. The rack was 54". We took a lot of bulls in August that came in weighing in the low 800's over the years.