Air Date: Week of May 28, 1999

This week, facts about... the largest member of the deer family, the moose. On Maine's Moosehead Lake their spring re-emergence is celebrated in a month-long festival, MoosMainea, which includes moose-watching safaris and demonstrations of moose-calling.

Transcript

CURWOOD: If you happen to be looking for a moose, now is a good time to spot one. That's because in the spring, moose come out of the woods to lick salt that's accumulated along roadsides all winter. Late spring is also the time of year that Maine's Moosehead Lake region holds its month-long Moose Mania. The annual festival is now in its 8th year. Events got underway in mid-May, and include moose-watching safaris and demonstrations of moose calling. Moose are found in Canada, the northern US, and northern Eurasia. Their name is an Algonquian description of their eating habits. It translates to: "He strips or eats off trees and shrubs." Moose are the largest members of the deer family, and the largest species of moose can be found in Alaska. A bull moose can grow to be 10 feet long and 7 feet tall, antlers included. Those antlers, by the way, can weigh as much as 75 pounds, bringing a good- sized moose's total weight up to 1,600 pounds. And for this week, that's the Living on Earth Almanac.