Moose logging pics

[Small Fry]

My father in law sent me this story. Thought it was interesting.

Moose logging story

Lew and the rest of the gang- We had been trying to keep this under wraps
As we knew this would happen once folks found out that with some effort you
Can train moose to harness. Once this picture got out, it's been E-mailed
Around like crazy but no one has bothered to fill in the rest of the story so
before any rampant rumors get going, I better write down what I know. I
folks want to extrapolate on that, then Lord only knows where this picture
and story will end up.

The man in the picture is Jacques Leroux who lives up near Escourt Station
and has always had work horses, first for actual work and then for show at
Maine's' many summer fairs. think he had two matched pairs, one Clydesdales and the other Belgiums. He would turn them out to pasture each morning and then work them in the afternoon dragging the sled around the fields.

Three springs ago, he noticed a female moose coming to the pasture and
helping herself of the hay and what grain the work horses didn't pick up
off the ground. Jacques said he could get within 10 feet of the moose before
it would turn and move off.

Two springs ago, the moose foaled(?)at the edge of the work horse pasture
and upon getting to it's feet had not only the mother in attendance but
the four horses. The young moose grew up around the horses and each afternoon when Mr. Leroux took the teams for their daily exercise the yearling moose would trail along the entire route next to the near horse.

At some point, the yearling got so accustomed to Mr. Leroux that, after he
had brushed each horse after a workout, he started brushing down the
moose. The moose tolerated this quite well so Mr. Leroux started draping harness parts over the yearling to see how he would tolerate these objects. The
yearling was soon harness broken and now came the question of what could
you do with a harness broke moose.

As you may or may not know, a great deal of Maine is being bought up by
folks "from away" and some of them understand principles of forest
management. Well the folks buying small parcels of land up in the area of
the Allagash have it in their mind that they don't want big skidders and
processors and forwarders on their small wood lots. Enter Mr. Leroux with
his teams of horses. Every morning, when Mr.. Leroux loaded the teams into the horse trailer to go off to the days job, the yearling moose got quite riled up and one day loaded himself right into the trailer with the horses. At the job site,
Jacques unloaded the horses and as the moose stayed right with them, he
would take the Clydesdales and his brother Gaston would take the Belgians
and off into the woods they would go with the moose trailing behind. They
would put the harness on the moose in case they encountered someone who
they could kid with the explanation that the moose was a spare in case
something happened to one of the horses. The work required them to skid cut, limbed and topped stems to the landing where the stems could be loaded onto a
truck for the pulp mill.

All morning long the two brothers brought out twitch after twitch of stems
with the moose following the Belgian team for the most part. At lunch
break Jacques had the bright idea of putting trace chains and a whiffle tree on
the moose's harness and all afternoon the moose went back and forth
following the Belgians in and out of the woods dragging his whiffletree
along the ground. As there were no stumps in the skid trail, the whiffle
tree never hung up on anything and that first day in harness went great.
So next day, they hitched on first a small stem and the moose brought it out
just fine following the Belgians.

Mr. Leroux told me they were up to four small stems now and the moose was
doing just great. He cautioned however that there were a few problems with
using a bull moose. Come June, when the new antlers start, the new bone is
"in velvet" and must itch like crazy as the moose stops every once in a
while and rubs his rack against just about anything to appease the itch.
Once, before the brothers learned to tie him of by himself while they had
lunch, moose was rubbing his antlers against the hame on the Clydesdale
called Jack and got it wedged there for a bit. Jacques said he wished he
had a camera as it looked like moose was trying to push Jack over.

The other problem is the rutting season. The brothers learned quickly to
leave moose in the barn as he was constantly on red alert in the woods
during this time. The brothers are also considering trying this with two
females to make a matched pair which would become an instant hit at the
Maine Fairs. The trouble with the bulls is their racks. They would be
constantly rubbing and hitting each other and yes they would have to be
gelded as I just couldn't imagine getting the two bulls anywhere near each
other, let alone in harness.
So now that this picture is going all over the place, the surprise has
been
let out of the proverbial bag. The Lerouxs want to continue the work of
trying to get a pair of females in harness but they may have to end up
breeding moose to do this and that's where they will run into trouble with
the state of Maine IF & W. I'm sure they don't like the idea of the
brothers "keeping" wild animals.

[blackdog]

Cool picture, but it's amazing what people can do with digital editing these days! Anyone remember the infamous 75lb Tillamook Bay chinook a few years ago?!?!

Anyway, Snopes says this is false and obviously (well, not that obvious as it looks pretty good) the product of digital manipulation. For example, note that the piles of logs in the bottom left and bottom right are reversed versions of the same image.

[sliverpicker]

Wild story! Definately photoshopped though

Can you imagine how much that bull would pull when his body was pulsing with with rutting juices! Gittyup Bullwinkle

[Cornbread]

Yep Snopes says it's false but these photos were true ones according to Snopes:

[A5 Light 12]

Quite the antler growth for a 2-year old bull, huh?


"Two springs ago, the moose foaled(?)at the edge of the work horse pasture
and upon getting to it's feet had not only the mother in attendance but
the four horses."

[red willie]

good eye,, i didnt see that at all,, for a sec. i fell for it,,

cool pic nun the less,,

rw