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Why on earth, he s asked, would a moose walk onto the partiallyfrozen lake. Gregory s answer, distilling years of experience withVermont s largest creature, is simple: Who knows why a moose doesanything? We head north along Route 5 where Gregory is hailed by a red FordF150 that leads him to where the moose was spotted. He pulls overby an iced-in cove dotted with summer cottages, grabs hisbinoculars and surveys a sad scene. Far out in the lake a big darklump floats, unmoving at the edge of the ice sheet, nature andmerciless thermal logic already having taken their toll. There snothing Gregory can do. It s not the first time this son of nearby Newark has encountereda moose-ice fatality. Sometimes he can shoot the struggling animaland put it out of its misery. On this day, there s nothing to dobut wait until spring. That s when he ll go out in a boat and towa nasty hairless carcass ravaged by ravens, crows and coyote,bloated and stinking, to shore. It ll be awful, he says, I got a pretty good stomach, stuffI ve dealt with, but it ll catch me sometimes. On the otherhand, he says he can joke to curious fishermen: You want to catchbig fish, you ve got to use big bait. Dead moose aside, most of the time David Gregory loves his job. It s really all I ever wanted to do, he says. His family tree includes relatives, among them his dad, who weregame wardens or worked in the fish and wildlife field. He s anavid hunter and a trapper: A coyote he caught, neatly skinned, liesfrozen in the truck bed. Coyotes are kind of a hobby of mine, he says, mentioning theirvocalizations and how they can decimate deer yards in winter. A game warden s life is dictated by seasonal rhythms and thestate s hunting and fishing rules, and is ever subject to thedaily unexpected, which arrives via calls to Gregory s cell phoneor state police dispatch. He s found himself spraying rambunctiousbears with a garden hose to get them out of downtown Lyndonville.(Young male bears are like teenage boys lots of energymisdirected. ). A few weeks ago he broke a bone in his wrist whenhe fell down a bank while checking some suspect trapping lines. Aremovable cast now encircles his left forearm. Not surprisingly, he s accumulated a host of stories and hassharpened his instincts and insights thanks to his years ofwitnessing so many human and animal misadventures. You see the best, and the worst, he says. That includesfall-down drunk ice fishermen on a shantytown weekend bender to ashivering all-night stakeout in a Ryegate swamp waiting for ahunter to claim his poached deer. He caught the surprised hunterjust before dusk. I remember what he was lugging for a rifle, but I don t rememberhis face, he says. After Willoughby, Gregory drives remote back roads to Newark Pondto see if any ice fishermen are out. Only a hardy Nordic skier isin sight. Later a souped-up jeep with Colorado plates, parkedroadside, piques his curiosity. A break-in? He tramps into asnow-draped camp with smoke wafting from the chimney and knocks onthe door. A surprised college student in shorts appears. He explains it s afriend s vehicle and his dad s camp, and he arrived to ski atJay. He thanks Gregory for checking. Back in the truck a fellow warden calls in about a suspectedviolator of game laws. Gregory s ears perk up. Recognizing thename, the two schedule a chat over lunch in Danville. Then it willbe back to his mobile office. This is my fourth truck in 18 years, he says. Every one ofthem has gone 155,000 miles. It just is what it is, he says. I am an expert from flexibleled-strips.com, while we provides the quality product, such as LED Down Lighters , LED Tube Light Bulbs Manufacturer, LED Spot Lamps,and more.
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