A very strange looking Maine moose was caught on camera
By Pete Warner, Bangor Daily News Staff
Registered Maine Guide Larry Gooding spends a lot of time outdoors.
Occasionally, the owner of Gooding Guide Service in Shirley sees something surprising in his travels while riding the roads, scouting for hunts or guiding clients in and around Piscataquis County.
Such was the case recently when Gooding spotted a distinctive moose. The adult cow pictured in his video appears to feature a large patch of white hair along its back, almost as though a blanket has been thrown over the top of it.
Although the video quality isn’t good, the footage does appear to show a moose with two different colors of hair.
WHITE-HAIRED MOOSE — This screenshot from a video taken in Piscataquis County recently appears to depict a moose with a white-haired back.
Lee Kantar, the moose biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said the quality of the video makes it nearly impossible to draw any conclusions about the cow in question.
However, he did offer some thoughts on the genetic mutations that sometimes cause color fluctuations in moose.
“There are cases of both piebald and albino moose in various parts of the world,” Kantar said. “Both, depending on the extent of the piebald characteristics, are very uncommon, but not unheard of.”
Kantar said he sees Maine moose every year that have some degree of white hair in their coats.