A pair of moose calves orphaned when their aggressive mother was shot by a fearful serviceman in Denali National Park and Preserve earlier this month appear to have gone into the wild.
Park spokeswoman Kris Fister said Friday no one has reported spotting the calves, which had been hanging out along the popular Triple Lakes Trail, for more than a week. Their fate is unknown, but wildlife biologists note moose calves on their own are prone to die in drownings or other accidents, or become easy prey for grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, or even lynx or wolverines.
Many suspect the calves have disappeared into the wild in the way the late Chris McCandless did years ago just to the north of the park boundary. A poor, lost, wandering young man on his own in the wilderness, McCandless starved to death in an abandoned bus.
Fister said attempts were made to save the calves from a similar fate.
On June 12, she reported via e-mail, "We attempted two times (one in the morning, another in the evening) to catch the one the park biologist saw. The biologist ran into some folks that morning who had seen the calf near the train station, and she grabbed another tech and they tried to catch it, but it evaded them. They only saw the one calf then.
"The Alaska Moose Federation folks showed up unexpectedly that evening,'' she added. Park officials took the federation members out to look for the calves. They saw one, maybe two calves, Fister reported, but couldn't capture either.
"Since then, there have been no reports of sightings,'' she said.
There is little likelihood of capture now. There are other cow moose with calves in the area. The orphans are all but impossible to identify. A lone calf spotted along the trail might not be an orphan, but another calf temporarily separated from its mother. Cows and calves do sometimes stray some distance apart.
And there is always the remote possibility the orphans were adopted by another cow. There are documented cases of such behavior, although it is rare.
Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com