Aboot the Moose Hunters

So, you want to know who we are already? Who are these people that they should be obsessed by the moose? Why should they walk around so much in the Quabbin this much? Do they know things that are not known by me, you wonder?

These questions, they are acceptable to us.

We are Jason, Jeff, Julian, and Juliet. Sanders, Gang, Damashek and Silberstein. How we came to be assembled, this is not interesting. There was a list, and we all put our names on it, for the course, “Problematic Species in the Quabbin Reservoir.” That is the whole story there. Our names also have the “J” in common.

In this course, we learned the dangers of the moose. The big, dangerous moose, and also the smaller, but still dangerous, hemlock woolly adelgid. The hemlock woolly adelgid, with all the wool and the killing of the hemlocks, it became secondary when we saw our first pictures of the moose, with its big, empty eyes and its big, funny nose. We were then made to be skilled searchers for the moose who went on all days into the Quabbin watershed to seek the moose. There were not other choices.

We would on each day walk into the woods looking for the moose while together. We found the moose’s tracks, and the moose’s scat, and we thought we should find more. We did not find more, though. We did not see the moose. We also did not see the beaver or the deer, the bird or the squirrel. We saw only tracks and scat, trees and streams, and snow, and that was all.

We used the GPS to find the CFI points in the Quabbin. We found either one or two each day. The CFI are points chosen by the foresters for tracking forest growth. In all but one case, we found the stakes that the foresters designated the CFIs with. In that one case, we found a beaver dam and a pond instead of the stake.

We also used the ArcGIS to make maps, the Final Cut Pro to make videos, and also the Dreamweaver to make websites.

There was another group with the Kevins, the Alexes, the Rebeccas, and the Taras, but they are not important as much.

Jason Sanders: AC '08	Jeff Gang: AC '09	Julian Damashek: AC '09	Juliet Silberstein: AC '10