Come on In, the Water's Fine

Seems our guests aren't the only ones enjoying the Lake of Bays. Mark lives at Point Ideal, at the end of the Port Cunnington Road. This week, he had some company...

He was a little surprised, pouring his morning coffee, to look out the window and spot this pair of young moose, mooseying along his beach. Luckily for us, he snapped some photos, and sent them along to me, to share on the Blog.

Now, given the number of deer we have, it's rare for us to see moose at Bondi. The two species don't co-habit particularly well. It's not just that they prefer different habitat -- deer like new growth, following the clearings left by loggers; moose like the watery places, thick with water lilies. Moose cope better with deep snow and deep forest. Deer, with their lighter legs and smaller bodies, prefer more open woods. But it goes beyond that. There's a tiny little parasite that can fell the biggest moose.

In 1964, wildlife researcher Roy Anderson, of the University of Guelph, discovered a link between a parasite called Brainworm (Parelaphostrongylus tenuis) which lived in White-tailed Deer with seemingly no ill-effects, and Algonquin's Moose. The worm is passed from the deer out through their feces. Snails feeding on the feces ingest the worm and Moose that accidentally eat an infected snail while browsing then become infected. This 8-centimetre-long round worm eventually kills Moose that have ingested it. Much of the research on this has taken place in Algonquin Provincial Park. As a result, in areas that are heavily populated by deer, the moose populations drops.

Since Port Cunnington has a truly high number of deer resident on the peninsula, we don't often see moose.

Mark was fortunate indeed.

His visitors hung out along the shallow shoreline for a while, then headed into deeper water, swimming across the lake to the Bona Vista shore.

To be visited by North America's largest land mammal is a real honour.

To get to share Mark's photos, that's an honour too!