We host a thriving moose population here in Tungsten Valley. One of them, named Henrietta, keeps abreast of local events by reading The Mountain-Ear from our recycling bags. A few days ago, she nosed one of our windows.

Leaning out warily, I asked, “What’s up?”.

“What’s up is, I want to give you my moose perspective on me and my friends hereabouts.”

You don’t get this kind of scoop every day! I invited her into the dining room. She seated herself (rather uncomfortably, I thought) while I scrambled for my notebook.

“Tea?” I asked.

“Pine-needle, if you have any.” She snapped a pair of bifocals across her nose.

“You’re in luck, Henrietta. Although for myself, it’s an acquired taste.”

I poured her a bowl (moose don’t use cups, you know) and set it in front of her. As she blew on it and slurped it, I asked if I could quote her. She nodded, and we were off.

F: Any comment on newly transplanted moose?

H: From the moose point of view, you-all are the newcomers.

F: Colorado’s Department of Wildlife (now Parks and Wildlife, CPW) only introduced them in 1978.

H: My ancestors migrated from Siberia 17,000 years ago, about when the First Americans arrived. Your ancestors (she eyed me with a raised brow over her glasses rims) just showed up in North America 400 years ago at most; in what’s now Colorado around the 1830s as Mountain Men trappers; and from the 1850s onward as miners and developers.

F: CPW says moose were only occasionally in Colorado, in small numbers, in olden days.

H: CPW has never addressed the last 17 millennia. Its glib remark on post-1850 moose population seems to be a single source, repeated time and again by the media, without anyone apparently trying to verify it. Trappers and miners didn’t take wildlife censuses. I’d be cautious about CPW’s claim on historic moose populations. In those years, much of Colorado’s wildlife was extirpated without much attention paid.

H: Got to add, as a moose who really likes life in your valley along Boulder Creek, if it’s good habitat now, it probably always was. Anyway, everyone can agree, we weren’t introduced in 1978; we were reintroduced to where we’d always been, to some degree or another.

F: Moving on, we’re all here together now. What about moose-human compatibility?

H: The word is “coexistence,” Frank. Many Coloradans are from somewhere else. Many (most?) Coloradans arrived after the 1978 moose population did. Instead of worrying about whose antecedents arrived when, maybe we should grant that this state has lots of room; that Coloradans are honest and fair-minded people; and that we need to coexist.

F: How?

H: Give us a fair shake. Understand that we are wild animals, not entertainment. Recognize us as part of Creation. Give us room to live without begrudging us.

F: What about moose attacks? I saw an article citing 21 in seven years.

H: That’s an average of three incidents per year, across the better part of a decade. Way more Coloradans are hit by lightning every year, and I don’t see anyone freaking out about lightning. Moose incidents are dramatic; they make news. They’re hardly a moose crime wave.

F: But moose will charge people, especially if they have dogs. I and my wife have come across you and your friends in our woodland and willows. One time, a female with a calf had quite a turn with my wife and her dogs, chasing them all the way to our barn!

H: Exactly, Frank. A female with a calf. That’s her baby; she will do anything to defend her baby and ensure its survival. It’s a cruel, cruel world out there. Not Disneyland. You-all need to pay attention. You shouldn’t have bumped into her!

F: Nowadays we keep to the open when moose are in the hood. We avoid dawn and dusk. We stay together, although I’ll scout ahead if we see signatures (scat, hoof prints, bark chew, broken branches). Especially in calving season. We make noise and we’re super-watchful around trees and willows. Even enormous moose can practically vanish. Their colors blend in, and their legs look like young aspens.

H: Outstanding camouflage!

F: Wrapping up, are moose mean?

H: People are mean. Animals have evolved survival and reproduction behaviors. Female moose guard their young. Male moose fight for access to females. I’m told (she looked at me over her glasses again) that men do the same thing over women, in bars. Would you like to be categorized by visitors from Mars as “mean” based on your compatriots’ sometime-behavior in bars?

F: Point taken. Concluding thoughts?

H: Consider the moose perspective. We live in a tough world. We suffer terribly from parasites including ticks (ick!). We’re hunted by bears, cougars, and people. We raise our babies in harm’s way, including dodging motorists. All we ask is that people be watchful for us in our habitats, leave us alone, and let us live our lives as best we can. The same as everyone wants for their families everywhere.

Frank Sanders, a scientist, takes inquiries at backyardastronomy1@gmail.com.