That’s a huge animal, but I agree that its ludicrous size in that photo is a matter of perspective.
After seeing those giant feral pigs in the news lately I don’t know what to believe anymore.
If you think of the road as one you might see a pickup truck on then yes the moose looks too big.
If it is really an ATV trail it might only be 6 ft wide and the moose looks about right.
The other thing is, Moose are simply fucking huge.
From wikipedia:
Aaaand, more moose images, taken by my mom. From my mom’s, you know, blog.
http://akelaine.blogspot.com/search/label/Moose
More images of moose crossing roads found around the interweb, to show that moose really are really big.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s 'shopped. It’s just that the trees and road are smaller than you think, so it creates an optical illusion.
The photog is probably be kneeling too.
Years ago I was camping at Gros Ventre Campground, near the Tetons. I asked the ranger where I might see some moose. “Oh, there are three sub-adult males that wander through the campground,” she said “keep an eye out for them at dusk and dawn.”
Sure enough, the next couple of mornings, the “sub adults” would cruise through, much to the amazement/dismay of the campers. They were huge! It was sort of scary how casual they were, walking right past peoples tents and campsites. I have a picture somewhere of one standing next to a VW Beetle, and the moose dwarfs it. Luckily people had the good sense to give them plenty of room.
You can see from those shots why hitting moose in your car is so dangerous - you snap off the legs and that big body goes right into your windshield.
I was driving back from Kananaskis park (in the Rocky Mountains) late one evening, and an adolescent moose decided to trot along beside the car. He trotted along with us for miles - it was surreal and very cool. He was just an adolescent, but he was a couple of feet taller than the car already.
A moose once bit my sister.
I am pretty sure that it’s a shopped pic. That thing would be about 10 to 12 feet at the shoulder if you compare it to the background. The fir tree to his right in the second pic is a relatively mature tree and I would estimate that the width at the bend just after the base is about 5 to 6 inches. Transfer it to a something like Paint, get a square paintbrush that is as wide as the tree and I counted 25 blocks ground to shoulder.
*realizes as he pushes the post button, the onslaught that’s probably coming.
This is a bit gross but an EMT I know responded to a call where a couple had hit a moose and it was stuck in the windshield. They think the woman survived the impact but the moose thrashed around enough to decapitate her with a kick. I can only imagine how traumatic that experience had to have been for her partner who apparently survived (I didn’t ask for details).
The pines look okay to me, actually - they look like lodgepole pines. The pine to the left of the picture that you can see best looks about 20 feet tall, and the moose is a little less than half of that - seems kosher.
GAH!
Hmm. Most of the moose pictures posted in this thread look fakey to me. Not the size of the animals - I’ve seen moose in the wild and I totally know how big they get. It is something about their legs and hooves. Maybe it is because I am used to horse legs and hooves. The moose legs look wonky.
Here’s the thing. What leads you to believe that the width at the bend is 5 to 6 inches? You’ve got no scale to base that on other than how big you think an old tree should be.
Trees in northern regions grow short and spindly. I grew up in Fairbanks Alaska, and you can go out into a muskeg region and cut down a 6 foot tall black spruce and count the tree rings and it can be 50 years old. You expect mature trees to be bigger because that’s what you’re used to. But old gnarly mature trees can be tiny if there’s a short growing season and poor nutrients.
Of course the only moose pictures that I can guarantee aren’t photoshopped are the ones taken by my mom. But that moose picture doesn’t look out of line to me. You see a gigantic moose next to big trees and a wide road. I see a big moose next to little trees and a narrow track.
I think it’s shopped. Aside from the scale looking weird, I don’t think you should see highlights on the mooses front leg nor should you see light difusing around the edges of the moose. That indicates that there is a lightsource directly behind him and that light should be blocked by the forest, given the angle of the tree’s shadows.
Don’t forget the camera lens may be compressing the back ground. There may be much wider gaps between the trees than how it looks in the picture. This happens when you have a decent depth of field. Stuff further in the background is in focus making it look less 3-D.
I meant the tree to his left.
Lemur866,
Which is fine if the picture was taken in northern regions, but there is nothing in the picture that makes me think it is in a northern region. My guess would be somewhere between New Brunswick and Ontario. If that is the case I think my tree size guess is fairly accurate. Look at the foilage in the picture. Look at the tall tree just right of center. I’ve spent alot of time in the bush in the eastern half of Canada and I have seen alot of moose in the wild and that is my guess, and I would say late October to second or third week of November. I know it sounds like alot of speculation, but I feel pretty confidant.
I don’t see anything odd about the shadows, the angle of the moose’s legs, the background, or anything else. In fact I think it looks perfectly normal as the moose moves away from the photographer and the photographer maybe zooms in. Is there a single photo on the 'net that someone has not claimed is faked? 