WASILLA, Alaska (KTUU) – A Wasilla woman got an up-close look at a moose family’s chaotic backyard reunion this week, coming face-to-face with a mother moose from just feet away before watching a bull bolt in fear of a neighbor’s dog.
Marianne Burke said she was walking her dog toward her mailbox when a neighbor warned her moose were close to her house.
“The neighbor came up and said, ‘The moose are real close to your house,’” Burke said. “And I’ve had moose around before, so it’s not a big deal, but I was just kind of careful.”
Then a large bull moose came trotting down from a vacant property nearby.
“He was big and massive and came trotting down quickly,” Burke said. “I was like, oh my goodness.”
Burke backed away and caught a ride from a passing neighbor back to her own house, where she told her husband there were moose in the backyard. He grabbed a camera and began recording as a mother moose approached the deck, coming within five to seven feet of Burke.
“She was looking at my apple tree right there,” Burke said. “And I was like, ‘No, I said, No, don’t eat the apple tree,’ because they’ve been eating our apple trees… So, she looked right at me. And so, she went on by, but we were looking at each other for 10 seconds or something.”
As the mother moose moved around the property, her calf became separated from her and began calling out, clearly distressed.
“I knew he didn’t know where the mother was, so I was trying to call to him,” Burke said. “And so, I was telling him, come over here, come over here.”
Burke said she’s had success guiding moose before.
“They actually listened to me after it took a few times, about three to five times calling to her,” Burke said. “So, I think they are kind of, they’re kind of like two-year-olds. And so, if you treat them that way — and yes, they’re massive, so you gotta be really careful too.”
The calf eventually reunited with its mother, but the pair then wandered into a neighbor’s yard, where a young child could be heard crying in fear during the video.
“They were so scared because the mother had been already warning the baby about it,” Burke said. “I was glad she warned me. I was glad she got me to the house because I would have had to just stay out for a while.”
The bull moose, which had been keeping its distance near a tree line, eventually circled back toward the family, until the neighbor’s dog spooked him.
“The dog barked and so he bolted,” Burke said. “He bolted right across our path and so we were so close to him. And he was just so massive. I was just so impressed with how powerful he was.”
Burke estimated the bull came within five to 10 feet of her and her husband as he fled.
Despite moose being a familiar sight around her rural Wasilla property, Burke said seeing an entire family, cow, calf and bull, together was a rare and striking experience.
“It was just beautiful to have the family here,” Burke said. “I mean, usually we’ll get a mother and a calf, or we’ll have a bull and a [cow]… We never had a family, though. So that was really neat.”
Burke said the encounter was a reminder of the wildness she and her husband sought out when they moved to the property.
Burke said she and her husband have intentionally kept their property wild.
“We have a very wild kind of a background and we kind of leave it that way on purpose,” Burke said. “We like the wildness of it.”
She said moments like this are part of why she loves living there.
“Just nature is so beautiful, you know,” Burke said. “I just like to go out with my dog and walk along and enjoy the sunset and the trees, and you know, see the birds and stop and watch them. So I enjoy nature.”
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