Moose takes a swim, a seal pup boards a dredge and a bear did people watching
In recent weeks, several wildlife sightings have occurred very close to Nome, from the surprising to the scary.
The swimming moose
Two weeks ago, Dave Evans got a call from a friend, who said there was something in the water, a couple miles off Middle Beach. About 2 p.m., he drove to the beach with a pair of binoculars, and watched as a large cow moose swam ashore, resting in the shallows. Not that a moose around town is rare, but Evans said he’d never seen a moose swim like that before.
Moose are strong swimmers and have been known to swim up to six miles per hour, faster than Olympic swimmers. But this moose was also spotted running behind AC. Sara Germain, wildlife biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Nome office had an idea why. “We often see these types of movements by cow moose this time of year when cows have just given birth to newborn calves and predators attack the cow/calf pair and kill the calf. It’s interesting to see that this cow swam out into the Sound but was probably a strategy by the moose to escape the bear by heading into deep water,” she said.
Seal pup
Last Wednesday morning, when gold miner Len Lovins went to work on his dredge, he found a surprise, but not one the diver was used to. There, in the sluice box on his dredge in Nome’s small boat harbor, was a healthy-looking spotted seal pup.
Lovins said he didn’t want to disturb the seal, so for several hours he just carefully worked on the boat, fixed the heater, and waited to test the dredge. The seal, he said, was just “chillaxing,” and even looked at him when he spoke.
People-watching bear
Several days later, a bear was spotted repeatedly, first at mile 5 of the Council Road, at Lynden Way Tripple Creek and then in Dry Creek next to Icy View. Nolan Vacek said he had seen several posts on social media about the bear and drove out to Icy View to look for it. He was standing on Osborn Road looking over the bluff with binoculars for five minutes before he realized the bear was behind him with his head down. “He sat there about 60 to 70 yards away eating some grass shoots and hanging out for about 5-10 minutes…wasn’t at all concerned that I was there. It certainly wasn’t afraid, which is alarming considering how many people recreate or walk their dogs in that area,” he wrote in a message. “It’s pretty dangerous for it to be that close to civilization and seemingly un-afraid of humans.”
Unusual wildlife spottings should be reported to the Department of Fish and Game, which many people did with the bear. The Nome Police Department will also respond in emergency situations.