Would a climate that has such a short growing season that it would stunt the growth of vegetation even be able to support a moose of that size? To grow that big I’d think you’d have to have some lush vegetation at you disposal for a fairly long time during the year.
Something about Marley’s post seems a bit off. See the border between the word “else” and “In fact”? Could be photoshopped.
Definte photoshopping/CGI in this video: World’s Largest Moose
Sure, moose live in the boreal forests of the north and even tundra.
As I said before, I grew up in Fairbanks Alaska.
It is pretty far north, right? And interior Alaska is crawling with moose.
Typical vegetation in permafrost areas will look like this:
Those are the dwarfed black spruce I’m talking about. No telling how old those trees are.
Aaaand here’s pic of a muskeg area with moose running along:
http://www.alaskadynamics.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/moose-running.jpg
The funny thing is, the same species of black spruce can grow into a large tree on well drained soil: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF16/1635.html
looks fine to me. seems to be a quad trail which would be 6 - 8 ft wide. I think we are looking a damm big moose walking down a little trail. the trees look just like what i grew up, small and dense. As for sinking into the ground if its dry clay its pretty darn hard.
Sign me up on the list of people who’ve seen real live moose and real scraggly little trees who thinks that’s a real pic of a big moose on a little trail.
No, you just have gauged where the Sun is incorrectly. The Sun is about 85 degrees from the LOS of the Photographer horizontally. The Sunspot by the left foot comes from the Sun bearing down at an angle that is far from any part of the Moose. There is no reason to see any of the shadow of the Moose because the body would be on the trees at the left of the frame, and the legs might be blocking some sunspots for all we know. If you look at the sunspots on the right side of the road just on the far side of the drainage thing, you’ll see how the legs of the moose cutoff a bit of the Sunspot. It’s much fatter in the first picture than in the second one and you can see the Sun shining on the leg the Moose is standing on at about the right length to match that Sunspot accounting for the alteration of the angle.
If you want to see if it’s a photoshop what you really need to do is open it in photoshop look really closely, you can almost always see rasterization around the edges. All but the best photoshop artists leave that behind, and likely a hoaxer isn’t going to be working with really hi-res images to begin with.
My verdict is that it’s probably real, and yeah, the scale is skewed because we don’t know how exactly how big the road is but it’s a well-worn track used by cars obviously, so it’s gotta be around 6.5 wide at least. The Moose looks like if it laid down on it it’d only be a little bit outside of the road. So it’s a huge Moose, but not necessarily outside of the range of normal.
Ms. Attack found alocalizing website in Greenville, Maine. They claim it to be a moose they’ve seen over the years.
Oh, and it looks like a big moose on a small track with scrubby trees around.
This is the text in the forwarded email. I haven’t the first clue who this guy is so I don’t know if it’s accurate.
It just doesn’t look like a dwarf forest to me. And if you look at the small tree next/below the moose, it looks to be about 2 feet tall. That would make the moose about 6 feet at the shoulder. No, I don’t have any references except I live in a pine forest and have seen a moose in my yard (thought it was a freaking horse at first.)
The ‘road’ does not look right. An unimproved probably unmaintained road will have vegetation in the middle of it. Sort like this. There is no way that’s a ‘1 & 1/2’ lane road. Not unless babe the blue ox is right behind that moose. I now think it’s a real pic on some sort of trail with the camera man on his knees.
And that line across the ‘road’ below the moose? I suspect that’s an erosion control timber. You bury them in a trail at an angle to divert water.
As the OP, I must admit that when I first saw this pic, I thought it was a HUGE moose. Not that he’s ‘small’.
I just found this using tineye.com. Scroll down about half way to see the pic.
enipla Whoever said that it’s an unmaintained road? In America the forest service maintains back roads, and if enough cars pass by it’s common for it to look like that.
Yep. You’re right. But what it looks like to me is a maintained trail.
During my only visit to Alaska back in 1980, I saw a couple of moose that size. One stepped over a 4 foot tall fence and it’s stomach cleared the fence by about a foot.
I’m not disputing that there are moose very far north, I’m saying that that is one extremely well fed moose to be in a place with a very short growing season and with not a whole bunch of available vegetation in the best of times.
Moose are what convinced me dieting was hopeless. No, wait, there’s a relevant point here. Moose are huge. And can be very scary. I’ve been chased by a moose on a trail off Turnagain Arm. Very frightening.
Anyway, my point. Moose eat, what, twigs and leaves? Leaves and twigs? Maybe some grass with the twigs and leaves? And they get huge.
Therefore, dieting by eating lots of high-fibre, low calorie food was pointless for me. 
Pass the fries.
I also think that “road” looks an awful lot like the Galloping Goose trail here in Victoria–an old narrow-gauge railroad that’s been converted to a biking trail. It certainly doesn’t look like a regular automobile road to me.
Zebra’s sister was bit by a moose…Hmmmm…
There’s got to be a joke in there somewhere
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti…
We don’t have dwarf moose in Alaska. In fact, Alaskan moose are generally larger than your average southern moose.
Were any other Canadians expecting this to be a picture of Mac the Moose, the moose along the highway in Moose Jaw who gets his balls painted blue regularly?
