One might think moose ar not the right species to be in favour of us humans.
They are tremendously big - not the typical cosy, nice pets really.
They look (sorry for that) slightly stupid - the face with its overhanging
lips isn't exactly what fits into humans understanding of beauty.
They walk a little bit as if the ground below them was covered with burning
char coal and everything usually in ultra slowmotion, on the other side like
a mixture between bulldozer and King Kong - nothing can stop them it seems.
They sound as if they had eaten a fog horn by conincidence.
Their ears can rotate as if they would be the radar of a fish trawler.
The muzzle, attached to a newborn twig or whole tree crops the leaf by a
short wink of the huge head devastating plant by plant.
And the big brown eyes just enter your heart with a glance between
alertness, boredom and kindness.
That's it - no more than just a twinkling of an eye,
and you love the muzzle, the ears, the size, the roaring, the unlimited hunger
and the majestic movement.
The moose is clearly well-deserved the king of the
forest - and of the hearts.
You might have recognised, that this web carries the name of Alces Alces, known as Moose, Elk, Elch, Älg or whatever name one uses, besides a short suffix related to myself - a "man".
Mr. Mooseman was born out of a "personal relationship" to these cosy, witty but tremendously stupid looking animals directly finding its way into many hearts - also mine, and that many years in the past.
Well, the web domain then for itself was an action of an extraordinarily tired person - let's assume it was me - who was checking a vast number of domains for their availability very late one night.
"mooseman.de" was free - someone had dropped it recently (whoever can understand that) - and I had found a domain just being perfect.
You might call me fanatic ... and my wife can tell I am ... but somewhere in life one needs a vision, mine is the moose photography (In my head the picture is already taken: The king of the forest - standing in a lake in the sunset, water dropping from all over the head, a fish on the antlers ...) . Now these huge beasts are not easy to find when you live in Germany, so - disregarding the captive ones in wildlife parcs - travelling is mandatory.
Canada was the first try - dissapointing (One cow with here cub, ways too far
away in the dark forest).
Sweden was better - 14 moose sightings, only three with circumstances allowing
photography.
Captive ones are since 2003 quite close in a game reserve - but still only
captive.
But the start is done ...
Credits for lots of information in the moose section of this web go mainly to the books as referenced in the Info part of the book section