Isle Royale Forums

Even after I clicked on the link and after seeing the title "North American Moose Conference" again, some part of my brain kept asking the rest of my brain...."I wonder how many moose will be able to show up?"

Apparently they're excluding all the European moose, which is a little sad.

European moose aside: The natural history museum at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris has a famous stuffed moose sent to France's leading 18th naturalist, Comte de Buffon, by Thomas Jefferson, as part of their beef about whether everything in North America was paltry and weak compared to everything in France. Mr torpified saw it on a work trip last May, the same time I was beholding unpaltry live moose on IR. The museum was using Buffon's moose to illustrate a moral about predator and prey, citing work done on Isle Royale. I'll try to dig up a picture mr t texted me (and that I received on the Voyageur ride back).

torpified wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:07 am European moose aside: The natural history museum at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris has a famous stuffed moose sent to France's leading 18th naturalist, Comte de Buffon, by Thomas Jefferson, as part of their beef about whether everything in North America was paltry and weak compared to everything in France. Mr torpified saw it on a work trip last May, the same time I was beholding unpaltry live moose on IR. The museum was using Buffon's moose to illustrate a moral about predator and prey, citing work done on Isle Royale. I'll try to dig up a picture mr t texted me (and that I received on the Voyageur ride back).

Imagine, if just a few years later Jefferson could have sent a stuffed Bison and/or Grizzly Bear. I wonder if it was Jefferson that sent a human size washtub that triggered the movement to better European hygiene.

No photos in this link so we'll have to leave that to you & mr. t, but there is plenty of follow-up info to answer pressing questions regarding such obvious xenophobia.

I hiked Pictured Rocks with a friend who is a retired state DNR Moose biologist. While walking along the cliff edge, he stopped and carefully walked to the edge and peered down the cliff. I asked why. He said he was looking for dead moose. He points out the tree (I think it was a Mountain Ash) growing over the cliff edge. He said these are moose's favorite food and they will lean out over the cliff edge to browse on the leaves and sometimes fall. He said when he was tracking radio collared moose, if he ever found one dead at the bottom of a cliff, he would look up sure enough, there was always one of those trees overhead.

odd man out wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 4:07 pmHe said when he was tracking radio collared moose, if he ever found one dead at the bottom of a cliff, he would look up sure enough, there was always one of those trees overhead.

Reminds me of a boating safety tip. Whenever search and rescue folks find the body of a lone male fisherman or boater that drowned, other than the most often observed thing that they lack a personal flotation vest, more often than normal they find the pants zipper is down. They lean too far, lose their balance etc.

backwoods doc wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:36 am Apparently they're excluding all the European moose, which is a little sad.

Somewhere there's Monty Python joke about my sister being bitien by a moose.