Two wayward moose somehow wandered down from the high mountains into the lower Poudre Canyon this week.
They were first sighted in Poudre Park by my neighbor Tara on Thursday. She said she had seen them at the mouth of Gordon Creek, on the far side of the Poudre River, before they started walking down the Poudre. Gorden Creek is right across the river from Sunnyside on the Poudre, where I live.
Unfortunately, I’m sure Tara could read the surprised, unbelieving twist on my face when she told me she saw moose.
Moose? Couldn’t be!
Moose in the lower canyon is extremely rare … no, it’s more like a once-in-a-lifetime event.
I’ve never heard of such a thing in my six decades. I’m sure my parents or grandparents, who had lived here since the 1920s, would have—considering how they liked to tell stories about happenings along the river—related such an unusual sighting if they’d ever seen moose wandering around the lower canyon.
The moose look young (but, hey, I’m just guessing; I didn’t get around to asking their ages when my daughter Kate and I stopped along the canyon highway with other gawkers this afternoon to take photos.)
Since Tara sighted them this last week, the moose have traveled about four miles down the river to just above the North Poudre diversion structure. There, they were comfortably plopped down today along the bank across the river from the canyon highway.
They calmly watched tourists stop and get out of their vehicles to take photos. At times the Sunday afternoon traffic—always the most clutterd time of the week in the summer—came to a standstill.
“Those humans, what idiots,” I imagined the moose thinking as they chewed on willows and batted their big, beautiful, brown eyes at us.
The moose likely arrived in the lower canyon by one of two routes. They may have journeyed down the river for 50 miles from the high mountains where this time of the year moose like to hang out in boggy willow marshes. Or they may have come down the Gordon Creek drainage from the higher mountains west River Feather, about 40 miles to the northwest of Poudre Park.
Regardless, this is a vastly new territory for them.
The altitude of the high mountains from where they probably originated is 10,000+ feet; Poudre Park, 5,800 feet. Types of riparian vegetation is a bit different, too. Trees differ some. So do some wild grasses. There is by far fewer marshes and bogs in this hotter and drier area of the lower canyon. Willows, a favorite moose snack, grow along the river in the lower canyon but are not nearly as plentiful as what can be found in wet lands in the higher mountains.
And, of course, yes, of course, there are the tourists (and us locals) here!
There is a respectable number of moose residing in the marshes near the Colorado State Forest west of the Continental Divide at the top of Poudre Canyon. There is even a moose-viewing center located there. The other popular location for moose is along the Michigan River north of Chambers Lake in the upper Poudre Canyon; it’s from there that these two may have found their way down through Red Feather and along Gordon Creek.
Moose were reintroduced by the Colorado Division of Wildlife to those areas about two decades ago (I think that time frame is about correct). Over the years their numbers dwindled and then, luckily for all of us, rebounded.
What brings the moose here?
It’s hard to tell. It could be they were driven away by a more mature male moose protecting its territory. There could be some environmental factor that prompted them to wander. Or maybe they just decided to go on a walkabout just for the heck of it!
Regardless of how they arrived here, it’s a pleasure to see them. It’s easy to get caught up in the routine of daily living—work, home chores, kids to care for—but something like the mysterious appearance of two gangly, long-legged, big-eared, willow-chomping creatures that aren’t suppose to be here reminds us to appreciate the treasures that sometimes suddenly appear in life.
The question now is: Where are the moose headed?
