A lonely moose is all that remains of several sculptures of large animals that once stood overlooking Silver Sands beach. He’s fairly well known in this neck of the woods and beyond. I first heard of him when I was still living in British Columbia, on the other side of the continent.
Many people wonder why we have a bull moose instead of a cow in Cow Bay. The ‘Cow’ in Cow Bay actually comes from the name of Robert Cowie, who once owned much of the land in the area.
I’ve never seen a moose in Nova Scotia, though I have seen one standing in a bog on the side of a road in Quebec. They are amazingly large creatures. Vehicle collisions with moose are often deadly for both the animal and driver. Caution must be exercised while driving at dusk and dawn through wooded areas where they are known to roam.
Moose hunting licenses in Nova Scotia are awarded through lotteries. This past year, only 336 tags were awarded out of 10,000 tickets purchased. Many non-hunters purchase tickets in order to tie up tags, which has lead to quite a kerffufle in the hunting community.
Swedes are the most enthusiastic hunters of moose in the world. The moose population in Sweden reaches over 300,000 during the summer months. Each fall, both men and women legally hunt and kill a third of that number of moose. That is a lot of moose meat.
Years ago, when one of my nephews visited from Ontario, I took him out towards Silver Sands beach early one foggy evening. Since his side of the family are keen deer and moose hunters, I knew he’d be more than a little excited when I told him there was a moose that was sometimes spotted in the area. His sharp eyes were the first to spot it in the mist…
Photo credits: Jeremiah Bell
June 29, 2009 at 9:52 am
Well that was interesting. Your post sent me googling about and the results suggest there’s a lot more wildlife in North America than there is in Europe–even in forested Sweden. OK, they have more moose. Very impressive, moose.
Which reminds me. I’ve been seeing a lot of deer in the middle of the day, which is odd. (They usually move about at dawn and dusk.) How about you?
June 29, 2009 at 10:41 am
Last summer I saw a lot of deer later in the morning – about 10am, both with and without their fawns. Maybe parenting their young family makes them more active during the day. I haven’t seen any yet this year.
June 29, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Oh good! You showed your moose statue. I like him better than our cow. Maybe you should take Jilly the Cow and we could have the moose, since we have them here?
June 29, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Yay! The good ol’ Cow Bay moose! Haven’t seen him for, let’s see…thirty four years!
And I did not know why it was called Cow Bay, until now! Very interesting.
Tell Jeremy that I really like his photographs. I love yours, too!
June 29, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Nice suggestion Kathy
Actually, last Hallowe’en someone suggested putting a cow costume on the moose…
Joan, I remember you saying that you had taken a photo of Abbey on the moose when she was young. I made sure to bring her there when she visited us a couple of years ago. I’ll be sure to tell Jeremy. Thanks
July 2, 2009 at 9:48 pm
There are moose in the Adirondack Mountains here in NY. Whenever I go hiking up that way I’m always on the look out for them, but I have yet to see one.
One day I ran across some moose sign along the trail. The tracks were ginormous! Here I was all alone in the woods miles from anywhere and just then I remembered reading a story by Teddy Roosevelt about being attacked by a bull moose. I decided maybe I didn’t want to meet up with one just then after all.
MDW
July 4, 2009 at 12:08 am
The size of moose is certainly beyond what we’d expect of a North American mammal, being up to 10 ft long with a height of up to 7 ft at the shoulders.
I was able to find the story of the attack in Roosevelt’s own words at
http://www.bartleby.com/57/12.html
He had to write a report of the incident, which took place in Quebec, as he ended up killing the moose at the urging of his guide. It’s quite the story. Thanks for adding it to the conversation forestrat.
July 9, 2009 at 8:34 am
Your oose DOES remind me of our Jilly and I’m with Kath – let’s trade for awhile! We’ll broaden everyone’s ‘big animal’ horizons!
July 10, 2009 at 7:06 am
Cindy, there are more of these big animals around than I would ever have imagined. A quick Google search produced all kinds in Nova Scotia: lobsters, a mastodon (I’ve actually seen that one) and even a steer (don’t tell Jilly).
January 4, 2010 at 4:33 am
[...] parking lot near the Cow Bay Moose was packed full of vehicles, surfboards and young men changing in and out of their wet suits. [...]