Chapter 11

But It Was Worth a Try

There are not that many moose left on mainland Nova Scotia. They were once the prime game animal and the largest creature in the provincial forests, but that has changed. In a period of less than one hundred years, they faded and were gone, leaving greying racks on sheds and camps as reminders of what they once were. The mainland moose fell victim to habitat change as well as a disease carried by the white-tailed deer that came and flourished in the changing Nova Scotian landscape. There are still a few mainland moose, mostly in Guysborough and Colchester counties, and it has become a major event to see one. If what you come across is a calf, it is even more exciting. Or at least it should be.

Ester

How young is too young? For a wild animal, is there an age below which attempting to save its life is folly? If the chance of success looks slim, should a potential rescuer forget what they have seen, walk away, and let nature take its course? Such decisions are always difficult and can raise a crop of trying emotions. By 2009 Hope Swinimer, founder of Hope for Wildlife, had been in the wildlife rescue and rehabilitation business for twelve years, returning more than 1,100 creatures to the wild each year. She had taken over new and challenging programs from other agencies, including the care of both white-tailed deer and raptors, and won a major national environmental award for her work. However, Swinimer had always quietly longed to test herself as the rescuer of Nova Scotia’s biggest land mammal. She wanted a moose.

Few Left

Environmental change and disease have almost wiped out the moose population in mainland Nova Scotia. It is listed as an endangered species. A recent survey estimated the population at only about one thousand animals, despite a complete hunting ban.

Joy should have been in the air, then, the summer night she and companion Reid Patterson returned home to find a hobbled young moose in the middle of the Seaforth rehabilitation centre’s driveway. But two major problems tempered the delight. One was that the moose was only three or four days old, the umbilical cord still attached. The other was a dream-shattering shot of reality: Hope for Wildlife lacked a provincial permit to keep moose.

Ester, as she became known, was not in good shape. Swinimer later learned she was part of a sad scene encountered a few days before by a couple who were out for a woodland walk when they witnessed a cow moose struggle to birth twins.

“The first baby moose was born, and that was Ester. Then they watched the second one start to be born, and it got stuck. They immediately ran and called the Department of Natural Resources, and were told to just leave it alone, let nature take its course,” Swinimer said.

The couple did as they were told, but passed a sleepless night. The next morning they returned to find the mother dead, her second calf unborn, and a bedraggled Ester still standing there. Despite the advice of Natural Resources, they intervened. The living calf was taken to their home and fed cow’s cream. After a few days, it was obvious something wasn’t working, so the animal was dropped off at Hope for Wildlife. Ester’s major problem was not one that anyone could fix. She had not received colostrum, a special kind of mother’s milk produced for newborn mammals that creates a baby’s immune system and jump-starts its digestive tract. In an emergency, colostrum from cows or an artificial substitute can be used, but the window for the calf to absorb it is very small. It has no effect after forty-eight hours, very little after twenty-four, and for full effect, it must be received within twelve. By the time this calf arrived at Swinimer’s rehabilitation centre, more than three days had passed. It would be another two weeks more before Hope for Wildlife fully understood Ester’s background, including the missing colostrum.

“We knew then the odds were stacked against us,” Swinimer said. “It’s really hard to save an animal that’s had no colostrum whatsoever. It helps deal with the simple, everyday things that life throws at it, and without it, their immune system is severely compromised and they really have a very difficult time. They can get through a couple of months, but things knock them down and take hold, and they have nothing to fight them off with.”

Despite what appeared to be a hopeless case, Swinimer and her staff decided not to give up. However, the problem remained that Hope for Wildlife had no provincial permit to handle a moose.

“I immediately called the Department of Natural Resources to get permission,” Swinimer said. “They said I could have her for one week. I was very disappointed with that, and I just expected any day for DNR to roll in, get Ester, and take her away.”

Swinimer says she blames herself for what followed. She took Natural Resources at their word and did not prepare for long-term care of the moose calf.

“I feel responsible in a way for some of Ester’s hard luck. I keep thinking that if I’d known I was going to have her for two months, I would have researched. I would have known things. But I kept asking myself what was the sense to get special pellets in, what was the sense for doing all the research, if she was heading up to the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park almost immediately? I feel very bad that I didn’t do my homework, no matter what I’d been told.”

After three weeks went by, Swinimer began to question whether DNR was still planning to come for Ester. Then she switched into high gear, researching and ordering the special foods that might have increased the calf’s chances if she had received them almost a month earlier. Swinimer quickly discovered that what she required was available, but not readily. It was several more weeks before the supplies arrived.

“It was just a calamity of errors,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared, I hadn’t researched, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep Ester for more than a week. But all that said, in all honesty, I don’t think it would have made any difference in the outcome, because of the lack of colostrum.”

Ester did not go down without a fight, and the Hope for Wildlife workers admired her for that. Four times each day, she would drain two or three bottles. She began browsing. The workers, realizing grass was not natural moose food, began scouring the woods and marshes of Seaforth for plants that were.

“We were picking her water lilies and stuff she’d find in marshes, trying really hard to get the proper foods into her. We gave her the best possible chance, but one day she just took a turn,” Swinimer said.

Ester spent her final days at the Metro Animal Emergency Hospital in Burnside where she received round-the-clock veterinary care. “I’ll always remember walking her in through the waiting room. It was full of people with dogs and cats, and little children asking ‘what’s that, Mommy?’ ” Swinimer remembered.

Ester made several trips in and out before her last stay and Swinimer said the staff gave every effort they had and more. But Ester just kept getting worse. Every day while she was back at Seaforth, the doctors from the emergency hospital would come out to treat her, and so would the technicians. As long as Hope Swinimer believed in a miracle, everyone did, and no one spoke what they knew to be the truth: this was one they could not, would not, win.

“We had her on all kinds of drugs, at least she was comfortable,” said Swinimer. “I just didn’t want to believe she wasn’t going to make it, I just wanted so badly for her to live.”

Lack of colostrum and proper early diet were the main factors blamed for Ester’s death. The special moose food finally arrived but it came too late to be of use. Despite the fact that she had no way of knowing Hope for Wildlife would be Ester’s home for life, Swinimer still blamed herself because she didn’t follow her instincts and start a long-term rehabilitation program at once. She has always believed that if DNR had acted on the day Ester and her struggling mother were first discovered, the calf, at least, would have lived.

Rehabilitation worker Hayley Inkpen introduces Ester to her aunt.

“To me, there is one argument I will never understand from government and that is to let nature take its course. I hear that so many times from them. To start with, what we deal with are usually human-wildlife conflicts in nature: things that we have caused, things we have a responsibility to fix,” said Swinimer.

Swinimer said the moose birth was an example of what she thinks is official policy gone wrong.

“Everything we do as human beings interferes with nature. We drive our cars to work, we pollute, we over-consume, we over-populate—so why is it okay every single day to negatively impact nature but not to positively interfere when we have the chance?” Swinimer asked. “If I was a DNR employee who received the information, I would have been right there. I’m not a vet, but I’m sure we could have got one and saved that second calf and perhaps the mother. The twins both could have gone happily ever after with their mom. If the cow died, we could have at least got the milk, we could have got the colostrum.”

Ester: without an immune system, she was lovable but doomed.

The Origin of the Word “Moose”

Early explorer Thomas Hanham reported in 1613 a large deer-like animal called Mus in the Abenaki language of New England. By 1616, more famous explorer Capt. John Smith was referring to the animal as a “Moos.”

In this case, it was not human action but rather inaction that killed a mother moose and her two calves.

“The only reason those people kept that little moose was they didn’t want to see it die. They kept it because they cared and they knew the government would come to destroy it. There is no reason in the world Ester should have died, none. Cow’s colostrum would have worked every bit as well. I’ve got freezers full, but it won’t be absorbed after forty-eight hours. There is no sense giving colostrum once the animal is past that point,” Swinimer said.

The story of Ester is a bitter one for Hope Swinimer and her staff. They believe that every wild life is precious and worthy of special effort, even if the case genuinely appears hopeless. But this animal could have been saved, Swinimer felt, and there is no loss greater than that.