Wildlife Wednesday: Moose Attacks, Black Coyotes & Conserving Africa's Wildlife

Greetings from the Higher Calling Wildlife® headquarters!

This week we have lots to discuss from around the world beginning with a series of moose attacks.

My “The Great American Wildlife Conflict” article was published in the Houston Safari Club Foundation’s convention journal that was handed out to all guests at their 2022 convention.

Big moose are bad news when they want to be! And they will show up in your front yard. (Photo Courtesy U.S. Fish.& Wildlife Service)

In the piece I named five animals I thought would have increasing conflicts with people and one of them was moose.

People typically think of carnivores as threats but large ungulates can almost become dangerous, especially when they routinely weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

In the last 48 hours, these three headlines came across my Google alerts.

Moose Attacks Two Vehicles Never Eveleth
Maine Teen Kills Moose After It Attacks Dog Sled
Alaska Moose Attack: Drive Prayed Not To Be Killed

Human populations are growing, moose numbers are increasing in some areas and wildlife habitat is shrinking.

The bull moose charged Bridgett Watkins’ dogs and trampled on them for more than an hour before it was shot dead on the Salcha River trail system near Fairbanks on Thursday.

Ms Watkins, who was training for a race, said she “emptied her gun into” the animal, but it continued to attack before a friend arrived and killed it with one round from their rifle.
That quote from the Alaska story is quite frightening and shows the potential danger of moose. Many predators leave after they think a threat is eliminated or if they “miss” in a pass at someone. Moose apparently like to hang around and keep on pounding.

I will be covering more on moose attacks and their behavior in coming editions.

My wife and I saw moose for the first time in the wild three years ago and we both fell in love with them. They have become her favorite animal so if fuel prices come down we may take a road trip this fall to photograph them.

Oh, don’t worry. We’ll keep a safe distance.

Black Non- Coyote-Canid?

For a few years I was on an email list with a bunch of biologists and wolf researchers and frequently heard the tear “non-coyote canid” used to describe animals that were definitely part coyote but might also have some wolf DNA.

Is this the case with this beautiful animal Rusty Adams captured on this game camera in East Texas? It looks like a coyote but it has a lot of bulk. Melanism (hyper amounts of black pigment) was common in what came to be the red wolf in the Southeastern United States. Is this a melanistic coyote or is there some lingering red wolf DNA?

I guess that would make it a non-coyote canid.

No matter what, it’s awesome and we appreciate Rusty sending in these photos. If you have game camera photos of unusual canids or any interesting wildlife, please send to chester@chestermoore.com. We would love to share them here.

Conserving Southern Africa’s Wildlife

In the latest episode of Higher Calling Wildlife® we talk with Adrian Donian of Buffalo Kloof Conservancy in South Africa about their amazing conservation work involving everything from white and black rhinos to cheetahs.

Joining us is Jake Hill, a Stephen F. Austin student who did an amazing internship there last year and had experiences that might make me just a tad jealous.

Jake connected me with Buffalo Kloof after we met on a turkey capture in Nacogdoches County, TX.

It’s a can’t miss episode on the Waypoint Podcast Network. Click here to listen.

Higher Calling Wildlife, the podcast, is brought to you by Texas Fish & Game magazine.

Bringing Back the Caspian Tiger

The Caspian tiger was the subspecies found in the Middle East and into parts of southern Russia.

They were known for having a large “beard” so to speak and were deemed officially extinct in 2003.

A Caspian tiger killed in northern Iran in the 1940s. (Wikimedia Commons Photo)

I recently came across a fascinating blog about Caspian tiger restoration efforts that involve everything from releasing Amur (Siberian) tigers into their range to bringing them back in the lab through cloning.

You can read about it here.

I heard intriguing reports in 2019 of Caspian tigers possibly surviving in Turkey. Wildlife of the Middle East has always intrigued me and I would love to one day go an an expedition into Turkey and Iran looking for some of its rare wildlife, including any possible leads on surviving tigers.

Eating Wild Game Is Sustainable And Healthy

We like to eat wild game at the Moore household as much as possible. I catch a lot of fish and usually kill at least a deer and a hog or two every year.

Wild game is healthy and by harvesting it and creating a demand through legal, biologically-monitored hunting, it creates a demand to keep wild species like whitetails and elk around.

Many people are turning to venison for health reasons. Check out my article at Texas Fish & Game on this topic by clicking here.

Free Wildlife of Israel E-Mag

Leading up to Passover, all of my media platforms are doing extra coverage on the wildlife of Israel.

We would like to offer our award-winning e-mag The Wildlife of Israel for free!

It’s got some top-notch stories and photos and features some work from some of the teens we are working with in our conservation project.