HOLDEN \u2013 A local couple who connected through their love of photography was able to capture images of the moose who recently wandered through town. The sizeable creature was relocated by the Massachusetts Environmental Police, with assistance from town police and a biologist, last month for her own safety.<\/p>\n
Dan and Tara Prosser have each shared photos of the magnificent moose on social media. In a post Dan shared in the Wachu-Chat Facebook page in August, he affectionately called moose \u201cour recent local celebrity,\u201d and noted that while the juvenile seemed \u201cdocile and \u2018friendly\u2019 the mom may be much less amicable and possibly lurking just out of sight.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that moose are most active at dawn and dusk and have a range of anywhere from 5 to 50 miles. His wife, Tara, to whom he referred in the post as his \u201cadventure partner,\u201d also shared photos she took of the moose, affectionately dubbed Penelope.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are so fortunate to have her as a member of the community!\u201d Tara posted in the same local Facebook page on Jan. 14. \u201cThese photos were taken at an ethical distance with a camera that cost more than my first car. It\u2019s so important for us to remember that this is a wild animal and we have to be doing our part as community caretakers to keep a safe environment for her. If we start getting<\/p>\n
too close or if someone gets hurt, we will be responsible for putting the animal in a position where it might be relocated or put down. It\u2019s also important to keep in mind that she is young \u2026 . It\u2019s entirely possible that there is a parent or a mate still in the area that might not approve of us trying to be too friendly. A moose is capable of getting excited and stomping us quite severely without even meaning it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following day Holden police shared via Facebook that they had assisted MEP on Bullard Street, where the<\/p>\n
moose had been hanging out for some time and was attracting a lot of unwanted attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnvironmental Police have been monitoring the local moose for a while, and believed that for the safety of the moose and the public that it was best to tranquilize and relocate the moose,\u201d the HPD post read. \u201cThe Environmental Police along with a biologist safely and successfully tranquillized the moose. The moose which they reported to be a healthy female, was secured and transported to western Mass where she will be released. For all that question this, the moose had taken up residency in a backyard for quite some time. This was the safest scenario for the moose and the public. The Environmental Police\/biologists did a fantastic job to safely move the moose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Outreach and Education Assistant Director Nicole McSweeney said the moose was relocated from the \u201cheavily populated area\u201d in town for her own safety \u2014 and that of the curious onlookers she was attracting.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the location, it was determined the safest course of action was to immobilize and relocate the moose with the assistance of the Massachusetts Environmental Police,\u201d McSweeney said. \u201cMassWildlife transported it to an undisclosed forested area nearby and monitored it until the effects of the immobilization agent wore off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan has lived in the Holden area for more than 20 years, and now lives in Jefferson near Eagle Lake with Tara. They have been married for four years but first met 25 years ago when they were police officers in Templeton and Gardner, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were good friends but obviously living different lives back then,\u201d recalled Tara, who grew up in Gardner.<\/p>\n
She went on to say that \u201cit was actually photography that reconnected us.\u201d A mutual friend \u201chad posted a great shot of the blood moon on Facebook\u201d about eight years ago, and they realized they both shared a passion for photography, specifically nature and wildlife.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to find somebody who\u2019s interested in the kind of time it takes sometimes to get great pictures,\u201d she said. \u201cFor every good picture, there\u2019s lots of hours of not seeing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan was fortunate enough to get some beautiful pictures of the locally famous moose back in September, and Tara grabbed some in January. He said he had been \u201ctrying to track its movements since last summer\u201d and that he\u2019s \u201calways loved nature and being in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to hunt, but the season was very short and I just grew away from it,\u201d he said, adding that he became interested in photography 25 years ago after he went to a forensic photography school when he was a police officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI put my love of nature, the thrill of the hunt, and photography skills to work photographing nature,\u201d Dan said.<\/p>\n
He said his \u201cattraction to the moose was because of the rarity of it\u201d and that \u201cuntil recently seeing a moose was nearly impossible in Central Mass.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he and his wife are often referred to as bird photographers, they really consider themselves wildlife photographers and recently trekked north to Maine with the hopes of capturing images of a Steller\u2019s sea eagle.<\/p>\n
\u201cBirds are just more plentiful and more easily found,\u201d he said of the hobby they enjoy. \u201cIt allows us to spend quality time with each other doing what we love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tara echoed her husband\u2019s sentiments, saying that photographing the moose and other wildlife including eagles, bobcats, owls, otters and more, together, \u201cgets us off the couch and away from the hustle and bustle of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get to spend time together and bring awareness to all the great wildlife we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOLDEN \u2013 A local couple who connected through their love of photography was able to capture images of the moose who recently wandered through town. The sizeable creature was relocated by the Massachusetts Environmental Police, with assistance from town police and a biologist, last month for her own safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}