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 I've spent a lot of time over the course of my career wondering what goes on inside the minds of wild animals. Do they ponder the past? Do they dream about their future? I have to admit, questions like these aren't exactly what was going through my mind a few nights ago as the rear end of a moose was going through the windshield of my minivan. What I was thinking was more akin to what the moose left on my roof as his bowels let loose on impact.
The young moose, rolling to a stop on the roadside, stood up, glanced back at me, then melted into the dark woods. She had lived to tell the tale, so to speak. I made it through without a scratch, but I can't say the same for that unbelievably tall creature who happened to step onto the road at precisely the wrong time. A friend offered to track her the next day and all signs indicate that she is all right, though likely with a bad case of road-rash and one hell of a bruised thigh, at the very least.
What does the moose think about the whole experience, I wonder? I don't think it is heartless of me to say that in my experience, herbivores just don't seem to be that affected by trauma. They forge ahead with their lives—eating, drinking and mating—despite the most harrowing ordeals and even with horrendous injuries. They simply have to. An impala that pulls the covers up over his head and refuses to face the dangers of life won't be a very successful impala, will he? The memory of past cheetah encounters fades quickly, pushed aside by more immediate issues like finding the best patch of grass or the location of the nearest waterhole.
On the heels of my moose crash, I arrived at work to find a turkey vulture in a cage that had been dropped off at my office. One wing apparently broken, the listless animal sat unafraid, her bald red head drooping—a likely sign of either head trauma or extremely poor condition. I brought the miserable bird to a wildlife rehabilitator, who figured out that she was probably struck by a car at least a couple of weeks ago and has been slowly starving since then. Undaunted by the challenges and likely failure of their efforts, the folks at Acadia Wildlife Foundation will put the bird on a recovery diet and strict regimen of physical therapy to try to bring this scavenger back to her former grisly glory.
I believe that, for people, the memories of significant events in our lives are framed by the words we attach to them and the stories we tell each other. Language captures the sensations and images that otherwise might become hazy and eventually disappear altogether. But what is it like if you have no language with which to label, compare and categorize the moments of your life?
I can't imagine how the moose and vulture will explain to themselves their respective recoveries over the next few days, weeks or months. I can only dream that one day soon the vulture will be up there soaring in lazy circles, peering down through the trees at a certain moose who is casually nibbling some leaves on the shore of a pond, far from the nearest road, both of their painful injuries nothing but distant memories.
Updated 8/14/10; originally posted 6/6/09.
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Rich Bard is a wildlife biologist who began his career as a zookeeper. Having spent most of his adult life moving around the country working with various wild animals, he settled near the coast of Maine in 2004. Amid the striking beauty of this remote region, he passes the time with his family, hiking, snowshoeing, gardening and watching the tide ebb and flow.
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