BDN contributor Allie Ladd caught these two cow moose on camera, one crossing Round Pond in western Maine and another getting salt from water and mud, he said.
Usually, when you see a moose in a body of water, it is eating aquatic plants. This moose must have had a destination in mind because she took a direct route across the pond, negotiating rocks under the water. If she had gone a little deeper, she might have avoided them.
Moose also are known to swim across lakes and deeper ponds.
Moose eat primarily leaves and twigs of plants and trees such as birch, maple, mountain ash, aspen and willow, but will consume balsam fir when other trees are leafless, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
But they also need salt, which they can get from pondweed and water lilies, and from salt runoff from roads. Natural salt licks are rare in Maine, the department said.
Bull moose tend to stay in the hardwoods at higher elevations in the summer where it is cool.
Cows live in lower elevations with their calves where food is more plentiful in the summer and they don’t have to leave their babies unattended and vulnerable to predators to go looking for it, according to the MDIF&W.
Moose play an important role in keeping certain vegetation in balance in the forest ecosystem, the department said.
