Moose delights trail users

For a few minutes, it’s almost as though the city doesn’t surround the Centennial Trail in Spokane Valley.

The low summer waters of the Spokane River run calm. The noise from Interstate 90 fades in the breeze, and for the last two weeks anyway, a young bull moose has ambled around Mirabeau Point without showing the slightest worry about trail users.

“I see it most every day,” said Steve Jurich, executive director of the nearby YMCA. “He doesn’t seem to be bothered by anybody or anything.”

Wildlife officials estimate the bull is about 2 years old, and folks in the area say they’ve seen him in Mirabeau Point Park, cooling off in the river and chomping down foliage among the apartment complexes near Pines Road and the interstate.

On his daily walks on the trail, Jurich said, he usually sees the moose on the river near the park or up to a mile to the east.

“It’s really a treat right out your door here on the trail to see wildlife like that,” he said.

Regardless of what’s around it, the river corridor through Spokane is prime moose habitat, said Department of Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Madonna Luers, and many of the 1,000 or so moose in Eastern Washington know it.

“We’ve had them in every part of town you can imagine,” she said.

The agency has received calls about the Mirabeau moose, but he hasn’t caused any problems to date.

“He’s just being a moose near people,” she said.

If they have the chance, she said, game researchers may put a radio collar on him to learn more about where he goes.

Some guess the young moose is the offspring of a cow seen wandering in the area a couple of years ago.

Moose also travel regularly from Mount Spokane to Newman Lake, and it’s not uncommon for them to wander toward the river, Luers said.

“He’s trying to figure out where to set up housekeeping for the coming breeding season,” she said.

That’s about four to six weeks away. Bulls get more belligerent during the rut season, as it’s called, as they scrape the fuzz from their antlers and occasionally pick fights with things like playground equipment.

The wildlife department tranquilizes and relocates about a dozen moose in the Spokane area every year, and if the critter in question gets into trouble, Luers said, that’s probably when it would happen.

For now, though, the only nuisance the Mirabeau moose has caused has been the untimely demise of potted plants behind a few ground-floor apartments.

“One of the construction guys comes up to me and says ‘You’ve got a six-foot moose in your yard,’ ” said River Rock apartment manager Shannon Zehner.

People there usually see him grazing early in the morning. They’ve enjoyed watching him, and Zehner said the construction manager has named the moose Charley.

He’s also known as Kaiser by some on the trail, said cyclist Pete Larson, because the moose likes to hang out on the bank near the aluminum plant.

“He laid there on the sand and just caught some sun for a while,” he said.

After spotting him Tuesday, Larson and his brother Dave brought a digital camera the next day, but Kaiser disappeared that afternoon into the open spaces that it’s easy to forget are there between the mall and one of the most densely developed residential areas in Spokane Valley.

But Thursday night the gangly creature sauntered onto the public stage again to dine on leaves directly across the river from the Mirabeau Point trailhead.

“He just came down the hill,” said Brian Reed, sitting next to the river with his pal Madison Janke, 3.

“I’ve seen them a lot of places, but it’s weird seeing them here, right off the freeway,” he said.