Urban jungle

This morning two young moose came walking hurriedly down our street - a young bull maybe two years old, and a small calf surely born this year. My guess is that they are offspring of the same mother, and either something happened to her, or more likely she has kicked them both out. With bears on the move and trying to get their last fat on before winter, the baby will be moose tartare in no time I'm afraid, without mama's protection - that's virtually certain. We have a big road construction project going on nearby and these kids were motoring fast, away from the loud equipment, so I didn't take their picture (though I saw them again at the end of our street, on someone's porch), but here's a similar photo taken earlier this summer out my mom's second-story bedroom window.

Hunter and I are experiencing habitat displacement too. The wetlands area where we walk every day has become such a gauntlet of big game encounters that I've given up on it until the leaves fall and I can see better what problems we're walking into. The boring industrial access to the airport seemed like a safe spot until I woke up to the morning paper photo of two big bull moose occupying those environs. So we have been taking our morning walks on asphalt these last couple of weeks. Ugh. And there's no reason to think we won't have a wildlife encounter there either, as Anchorage is having its worst urban bear influx in years - they're hungry and we leave out garbage. Bears, as it turns out, are very good at adding 2 + 2.

But at least in the subdivisions and smaller parks there are some open areas where I can see better than in the dense cover, and more structures to get behind and detours one can take. We do have nicely paved bike trails and many small parks. But you can't get yourself grounded on concrete, and I can't wait to get back to our own trails soon.