Library Images
Arctic Horses Under the
Whispering Stars
Moose Medicine
Six o’clock on a June morning in western Russia,
sunshine spills across a farm yard as a woman carrying a pail approaches
a milking barn. This classic rural scene is still common in parts of
Russia today, but inside the barn the scene changes from common to bizarre.
For there, standing in a milking stall is not a cow, a goat, or even
a sheep, but Nella, a six foot tall 500kg moose.
Five year old Nella is one of the 58 moose at the Sumarokova moose farm.
Although moose have also been domesticated in Scandinavia and Alaska,
primarily as tourist attractions, what makes the farm at Sumarokova
so unique is that it is the only farm in the world where moose are reared
exclusively for their milk. Although highly nutritious, the milk is
produced not primarily as a food, but for its therapeutic properties
in the treatment of patients suffering from stomach ulcers, leukemia
and radiation sickness.
