About 1,500 moose live in and around Anchorage, Alaska, (population 300,000) and this time of year is calving season. The animals usually give birth in the city’s many wooded parks and the occasional residential back yard, but this week, a female moose gave birth to a tiny, spindle-legged calf in the parking lot of a large mall, right outside a Lowe’s home-improvement store.
Onlookers with smartphones and local media documented the event. When the little moose took its first steps, people cheered. The mall where the birth happened is relatively new. It wasn’t long ago that the area was just a stretch of woods.
“A lot of times moose will return to give birth the same place they were born,” said Erin Kirkland, an Anchorage-based family travel writer and outdoor advocate. “I wonder if she’s just returning.”
Kirkland said there are moose “regulars” that appear in her neighborhood to calve year after year. She’s careful to warn her kids to give the animals space, especially when they have small calves. Moose can be temperamental. A female moose who may have had a calf trampled a pair of women walking in a city park on 27 May. Kirkland was happy that the people watching the moose in the parking lot seemed to respect the animal.
“It’s an amazing thing that they manage to live in the middle of this urban growth,” she said.
If you live in Alaska right now and have a Facebook feed, it is likely full of backyard moose babies and general moose hijinks. Here are a few popular moose-tastic posts, for those who are missing out on the moose-fun:
A newborn moose calf and its mother in a back yard.
Here’s a mother and rare moose triplets (which may not all be hers).
Here is a moose playing with wind chimes.
A baby moose learning to walk.
Here’s a closeup of two calves at a moose conservation center.
And one going for a very ambitious swim.
