Willy Trolove: Leave the elusive, reclusive moose on the loose

You have to love the moose story.

At the far edge of New Zealand's last untouched place, among the fiords heavy with rain and cloud and Enya music, long-forgotten beasts from the wilds of North America browse along the stream banks, roam through the hanging valleys, and ruminate on the shores of landscapes mirrored in water, their calls muffled by the vastness of the ancient forests, the thundering of numberless waterfalls, and the distant hum of the turbines at Manapouri.

The moose story has it all. There is romance. There is mystery. There is an obsessed eccentric who collects deer dung.

There is brooding scenery and echoes of Bigfoot, Loch Ness and Paddy Freaney's moa. And in the middle of it all - or, at least, at its furthest, most elusive extent - is the moose, the largest and most unusual deer, long-legged, droopy-nosed, with huge bowl antlers that, if appropriately wired and pointed the right way, would surely pick up Sky TV.

According to recent DNA tests, there are moose in Fiordland. For 50 years these docile ungulates have gone about their quiet, carefree, shrub-munching lives without rousing so much as a "Hey, there's a moose!" or "That's a funny looking cow" or even "How did that rabbit get to be so big and ugly?"

But that is about to change. Soon there will be photos. Every man and his Canon will head south and return with blurry images of something that might possibly be a moose if you squint a bit and use your imagination and ignore the "Made in China" label sewn into its neck.

There will be rewards. Radio stations, newspapers and TV chat shows will give cash for the first solid moose evidence, the first captured moose, and the first person to ride naked on mooseback through the streets of Epsom.

There will be spin-offs. We'll have moose deodorant ("For that back-to-nature national park smell"), chocolate moose ("Stays fresh in the freezer for 50 years") and moose ringtones ("Answer the calls of the wild!").

Soon the reclusive moose will be moose recluses no more. And that will be a pity.

I've seen moose. Once, in the half-light of a Wyoming thunderstorm, between hail and lightning and worries about whether I had packed my thermal underwear, I peered into the forest at a strange shape. The shape turned and pricked its giant ears. A calf - small and fragile - stumbled between its legs like a drunk Basil Fawlty.

The shape was extraordinary. Picture a horse. When a horse stands upright, its head is above its body. Lengthen the horse's legs so that its body is raised level with its head. Apply a humpback. Attach a fold of fur-covered skin under its chin.

Remove the horse's mane and dress it in an all over grey/brown coat. Affix novelty ears and a quizzical expression. Add a few hundred kilograms of bulk and, if you like, antlers as fierce as claws. Congratulations, you have yourself a moose.

Now you have to figure out what to do with it. The Environmental Risk Management Authority hasn't approved your moose. DOC will treat your moose as if it were a Kaimanawa horse, even though moose were here long before DOC was. Biosecurity New Zealand, stung by criticism about rock snot and sea squirts, will be keen to exterminate your moose as soon as it can. And every hunter this side of the Rocky Mountains will want to turn your moose's head into a novelty wall feature.

Your moose does not have good prospects. And neither do the moose in Fiordland.

This leaves me in a dilemma. I'm off to Milford this summer with friends. We'll stomp through the countryside that the moose call home. And as I wheeze my way up a mountain path, dive into a southern spring, or apply insect repellent for the 27th time since lunch, there's a remote chance that a lonely moose will stumble into view.

What should I do? Who should I call?

I can talk softly to the moose, keeping it occupied, while I rummage through my backpack, find a camera, and take a blurry photo that will come out looking vaguely like a moose if you squint a bit and use your imagination.

Fame and fortune will be mine. I will appear on television, on talkback, on the front page of every newspaper. I will be known as the man who found the lost moose of Fiordland.

Or I can take another course. I can meet the moose's gaze, give it a nod and a wink, and hurry it on its way.

And I can live out my life in moose-less obscurity, keeping my silence and hoping against all hope that at the far edge of New Zealand's last untouched place, nobody will disturb my moose, or its kind, for another 50 years.