"Stumpy" The Moose

        Finally, I can tell the story of "Stumpy" the moose. To be more accurate, I should say that I can tell the story of the past several months in Stumpy's life. How he came to be where he spent the winter, and how he "earned" his name will remain a mystery.

        I learned about Stumpy shortly after Christmas - just after the monster snowstorm that we had on Christmas and Boxing Days, in fact. My introduction came in the form of an e-mail, accompanied by a photograph of a moose that good friends of mine had encountered on one of their daily rambles in the hills behind their farm. It was only when my friend suggested that I take a good look at the photo, though, that the story began to emerge.

        Stumpy only has three legs! Alright, I am going to be anatomically correct here for a minute. What he was actually missing was the foot of his right hind leg. Moose, like all large quadrupeds, actually walk on their toes, and what looks like the knee is actually the anklebone. The knee and the hip are actually quite close together and high up on the animal's body. In any case ... !

        When they found him, the stump was still bleeding, indicating that the misfortune had happened quite recently. Somehow he had managed to struggle through belly deep snow to what was to be his haven. Phone calls to various agencies responsible for these sorts of things all indicated that there was very little to be done and that it would be better to let nature take its course. That was a bit hard for my friends to accept (although it was completely understandable from an official point-of-view, I must add) and so they took it upon themselves to become Stumpy's benefactors for the duration of the winter.

        In all, there were fewer than ten of us who actually got to see Stumpy during this time, and only a very few more who even knew of his presence. The reasons for keeping it quiet were, unfortunately, obvious. Forget for a minute those brave hunter-types (who quite likely caused the original problem) who would be only too tempted to swagger in to his hiding place for the sheer "thrill" of shooting a three-legged moose; we also recognized the danger from far more benignly inclined sightseers who, nevertheless, would bring considerable stress to an animal that had already been through more than he should have been. I saw him once, toward the end of his stay, and only after I was assured that he was well on the road to mending.

        In the meantime, my friends hauled armloads of small hardwood trees every day into an area where Stumpy could get at them with relative ease; other than that, they took due precaution not to tame him. They realized early on that, come spring, Stumpy would move along and they did not want to be the causes of stories about a tame moose limping up to people to get his picture taken.

        I am certain that when Stumpy finally decided to move out one day a couple of weeks ago, they had a good feel in of a job well done - and a tinge of sadness at the end of what was an extremely interesting winter-long contact with one of the more remarkable creatures in our woodlands.