moose anyone?

when I was in the White Mountains last week we came pretty close to a moose.
It came down the slope about 100feet on my right side of the trail and stopped when it saw us.

The dogs didn't realize the moose because they couldn't see or smell it.

What to do?


stopping? Ok, I heard a lot of different storries about the moose. most of them are more horryfying than fun.
but since the dogs were quite, I slowly grabbed the camera and took the first picture but of course the autofocus focused on the bushes. so I adjusted the camera and took a few shoots until the dogs realized whats going on and went nuts. the moose turned around and seemed to leave but then turned its head, when the the dogs started to screem.



there is a current topic at sleddogcentral right now.
where they give different opinions of what to do, from bearspray to a .44 magnum.
Since I'm from central Europe and not so used to guns as the folks here, the magnum isn't an option.

In the end I think bells put on the collars of the dogs, using caution and having respect to the moose in their invironmet is the only thing I can do. And hope simply not to run into an angry moose.

BTW.
last year at that time I almost run in to a black Bear. it was in the same area. that bear seemed to like running in front us on the trail. he also was 100 feet away and finaly left the trail to our rigth side. It looked actually quite funny because he looked like a giant loping gorilla in the snow. :)
the wildlife service which I called afterwards told me, beacause of the unusual warm wheather some bears did not start hibernating and were still looking for something to eat.
but that was last year, even it is very warm right now (+15°C) we still have 2-3 feet snow on the ground.