Radioactive Moose in Chernobyl

Before my most recent trip to Chernobyl I'd only ever seen three wild moose (all in the same day at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming).  This was despite driving 1000's of miles around Canada, and only ever seeing moose in the gift shops there.

On my previous six visits to the zone, I'd only managed to see the bones of a very dead moose, and I knew that by venturing onto roads less traveled in Chernobyl - ie away from the main tourist trail - the changes of seeing a moose were higher. 

I only had a 200mm (full frame equivalent) lens with me so I knew any photos I got were going to be "meh" at best, but today was about the experience, with any photos, however much post-processing cropping involved would be a bonus.

Along the 60 km round trip (we were the only ones to use the road that day), we saw four moose.

THERE ARE FOUR MOOSE!

I only managed to get photos of the first two, with the mother and calf being too flighty and running off into the woods before I even had a chance to raise my camera.

I was right about the 200mm focal length though (all of these images are very heavily cropped), not nearly enough.   Perhaps I can send a few (dozen) invoices and get the wonderful Fujifilm 100-400mm lens I've had my eye on for the last year before my next visit to the zone in August....

Still, at the end of the day I saw moose, and moose makes me happy!