The Story
Both antlers run red, and the velvet that covered them hangs in strips past the eyes of a bull moose. He stares straight down the lens from a green field, a rag of his own skin dangling beside his muzzle.
The gore runs on a schedule. Minnesota DNR says antlers begin growing in April. Under that velvety skin, Maine's wildlife agency says, antler can grow as much as 8 inches in just nine days. Then testosterone surges in September and the velvet begins to shed, leaving bare antlers for the rut, which Minnesota puts at mid-September to mid-October, when bulls spar with them.
In one stretch of this film, a collection of old antlers sits around the crew, every one grown by the same bull, and that bull is standing right in front of them. One antler they handle still carries velvet, soft to the touch.
In December the crew stand near a bull whose velvet is already gone and give him days, maybe a week, before his rack comes off. Bulls drop their antlers in late fall or early winter after the rut to conserve energy for winter, usually in December and January by Minnesota's count. Elsewhere in the film a bull gives a shake and the antlers simply come away.
The day ends on a road in Jasper at sundown. A cow and calf cross, the cow looking both ways. Then a bull and a cow stand in the middle of the road, licking it. Moose seek mineral licks to replenish sodium reserves depleted in the winter. Natural licks are rare in Maine, where moose use salt runoff along roads, and these Jasper animals have come for salt too.
The tally climbs to five, then seven. Someone in the vehicle asks whether they have moose insurance. They do. By dark the count is nine, and another cow and calf are licking the road right in front of the vehicle, high beams on.
