The Mammoth of the Mountains
The mountains camouflage his massive body as he with quiet, shadowed strength is only seen when desired––when he lifts his kingly head from the spring. He defies intrusion. He is endurance and survival––he is moose––the untamable beast who rules the wild meadow.
He moves with regal stride on hooves of iron, wearing his crown proudly. Over a half ton of raw strength, the moose is a rock claiming his space near riverbed and valley floor. A dinosaur of a creature staking his claim wherever his roaming tree legs take him. He fears nothing. His enormous size alone makes him a formidable foe.
The first time I saw paddles staring back at me through freckled forest, I was twelve, standing by my stepdad’s side. The moose’s eyes were dark and menacing as he fiercely guarded his wooded ground in Yellowstone National Park. My adrenaline soaked impulse was to run, but this was soon overtaken by a spell bound curiosity to take a closer look. Blocking my path with a stiff arm, my stepdad warned me of the moose’s speed and deadly power. “He will kill you in an instant; trampling you to death.”
It was at that moment when I realized moose aren’t simply large deer or oversized cows grazing off the land. No, the moose is king of the forest and the commanding general of the land. He rules with proud confidence and defends with brutal strength. On average, moose weigh 1200 pounds and are 6 feet tall, not including their paddles—otherwise known as antlers—which grow up to 6 feet across.
The mammoth moose has no master and journeys the savage lands of the wild with defiant curiosity and confidence, imposing his presence wherever he wishes. The forest king has never struggled as humans do with self-confidence or insecurity or timidity. In fact, I believe there has never been a moment of kingly PTSD. Why? Because he rules and he knows it. One swipe from the tip of the moose’s hoof will take down a bear or fend off a pack of wolves. Through the mist, with hooves of steel, the moose’s glacial size deters the most ravenous of rivals.
The moose is the largest of the deer family. Interestingly, in a wild world of predators, the moose only has two Achilles heels. One might imagine that such a fierce and foreboding beast as the moose could only be taken down by something equally massive, but you would be wrong. You see, the greatest threats to a moose’s lumbering lifespan are bacterial infections and parasites. Not even a pack of bloodthirsty wolves can conquer the moose, yet something as microscopic as a parasite can bring the moose to his knotted knees.
Some historians speculate that Alexander the Great died by the simplest of things––a mosquito bite. It’s ironic that on the eve of his death he had just recovered from a spear wound in his chest and a bludgeoning wound to his head. And yet, the toxic, malaria infected bite of a mosquito is what presumably brought him to his death. In the same way, the moose—the “Alexander the Great" of the woods—is only truly susceptible to the smallest of foes, a foe the size of a fleck of sand: the Parelaphostrongylus tenuis, a parasite otherwise known as brain worm. These microscopic killers piggy-back ticks and snails, seamlessly invading the moose’s immune systems and navigating to the moose’s brain where it manifests as a brain worm.
Something as benign as a small cut or open wound welcomes the moose’s potential doom. The bite of a mosquito also proves deadly through malaria and the infestation of parasitic worms that hunt them as prey. The unsuspecting, humble, and insignificant threat topples the invincible. Though he be great, he is small––the mammoth of the mountain. He is survival and endurance, the untamable beast who rules the wild meadow.
