ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An angry moose attacked and killed a man in Alaska while he was trying to protect her twin newborn pups. The man’s family said he was a nature photographer who knew the risks of taking pictures in the wild and died doing what he loved.
Some people want to kill the moose, but Dale Chorman’s family doesn’t want it done because the moose is only protecting her babies.
Chorman, 70, and a friend were looking for the moose and calves on Sunday to take pictures of them when the moose charged out of the bushes, according to Chorman’s friend, author and writer Tom Kizzia of Homer, Alaska.
Kizzia told The Associated Press over the phone, “They both turned to run, and the friend looked back and saw Dale lying on the ground with the moose standing over him.”
“There was no clear evidence of trampling, and when they found his body later, they didn’t find any signs of trauma,” he said. “I think the medical examiner will try to figure out what happened, like if it was just one blow to the terrible wrong spot or something.”
The friend called for help, but Kizzia said the moose had disappeared back into the woods by the time the doctors got there.
Nathan Spence-Chorman, Dale’s son, wrote on social media that Dale was “a loving husband to Dianne, a great father to me, and (as you know) a fantastic friend to many.”
The attack that killed the guy happened on Chorman’s 3-acre (1.2-hectare) property just east of Homer. In the spring, moose give birth in a dense alder and elderberry scrub forest on Chorman’s land.
Chorman worked as a builder and carpenter, but he loved being outside and watching animals. His favorite things to do were watch birds and wildlife and share his pictures with others.
“This wasn’t a helpless fool who stumbled into danger. This was someone who knew the risks, went out to take a great picture, and ended up in a dangerous situation,” his son wrote.
Someone wrote that the moose shouldn’t be killed. “The mother ungulate doesn’t have to die. She was only looking out for her children.
Spence-Chorman said that his father would have been okay with the death, even though it was sad.
He wrote, “The truth is, he died doing what he loved.”
Cyndi Wardlow, a regional supervisor in the Department of Wildlife Conservation, said that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game usually gets reports of moose acting aggressively or in a strange way.
She said, “In this case, it’s clear that we’re very worried about public safety.”
She said, “If there was an animal that was continuing to pose a threat to public safety, we might put that animal down, but we’re not specifically going that route.”
Wardlow told everyone to be aware of wildlife and their surroundings. This included the many summer tourists who were just starting to find their way to Alaska.
The moose is the biggest deer in the family Cervidae. Females can weigh up to 800 pounds (360 kilograms), and males can weigh twice that. Also, at the shoulder, they can stand up to 6 feet tall (1.8 meters).
Up to 200,000 moose are thought to live in Alaska.
In Alaska, this is the second moose attack that has killed someone in the last 30 years.
When a 71-year-old man tried to get into a building on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus in 1995, he was killed by a moose. Students had been throwing snowballs at the moose and its baby for hours, according to witnesses. When the man tried to walk past them, the animals got angry.
His son told the AP in an email that Dale Chorman did not live in Painesville, Ohio, but instead hitched a ride to Alaska in the 1980s. He had been to many places, including the Americas, Europe, Asia, and even Antarctica.
When Dianne came to Alaska to see bears, he was working as a guide at a nearby river camp. That’s how they met.
His son said that Chorman loved all animals, but especially birds, and that most of his work as a guide was based on taking pictures of brown bears. He taught people in Homer how to “bird by ear” and could tell the difference between many kinds of birds just by hearing their calls.
Homer is on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, about 220 miles (355 km) south of Anchorage.
