Comments on: 2009 “Champ Video” Compared To Swimming Animals

By: Galea

Galea — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:46:20 +0000

It just doesn’t look like a deer or other cervidae to me. If I had to vote I’d go with some sort of reptile, like a monitor. But it could be biased because I just got a savannah monitor and have had monitors on the brain.

By: SamuraiWannaBe

SamuraiWannaBe — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:51:53 +0000

Eirman- Plural for Moose is Moose, just like Deer-Deer. On that note, my personal favorite incorrect Moose Plural is “moosen”

My vote is still for Moose.

By: Munnin

Munnin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:53:19 +0000

After viewing these comparison videos, I think the subject of the “2009 Champ video” is a young deer. There aren’t any antlers visible, and it seems not to be a very smooth swimmer. Maybe it is an inexperienced swimmer. It seems to struggle to keep its head above water through most of the video, and only appears to completely submerge near the end of the sequence, very briefly. Also, as others have pointed out, it seems to be swimming very decidedly toward shore. As for the brief glimpse of some other body part breaking the surface well behind the head, could this be one or both of the fully extended back legs? Again, it does not appear to be a confident swimmer, so I’m ruling out otter, beaver, or other mammals which are quite at home in the water, and don’t mind swimming under the surface.

By: Valen

Valen — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:20:00 +0000

I agree with Scarfe, the “post”, buoy or whatever the object swims by should be measured to give us some scale. The water depth can easily determined with any fish finder / sonar unit. This would give us some actual data.

By: meatstix

meatstix — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:54:20 +0000

Actually, moose are quite adept at swimming and submerging. Reportedly they can dive up to fifteen feet to feed at the bottom; think grazing under water.

Yes, knowing the depth (or depths?) would help. It looks like it was trundling along in the shallows and then hit a deeper spot.

By: odioustrident

odioustrident — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:42:46 +0000

Something seems to be breaking the surface of the water well behind the object. I would have though this was floating debris or a very tired, desperate large animal trying to get to land. The trailing humps, I think we can call it that, are just too weird. Who knows.

By: eireman

eireman — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:32:48 +0000

After watching the videos of the moose (mooses? meese?), I have to say that I think the Champ video most closely resembles a swimming moose. I’m dismayed that the video seems to show the animal swimming toward shore but then it ends right before it would have reached shallower water. Convenient? I don’t know. I’m just saying…

By: Scarfe

Scarfe — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:54:28 +0000

What’s interesting when you compare the “Champ” video and the video of Moose and Deer swimming is that the moose or deer always keeps its head well above the water. The object in the Champ video seems to almost completely submerge at several points (ex. 1:27). If it’s a non-aquatic mammal like a deer or moose, it is really struggling to swim and keep afloat.

I doubt it’s a deer or moose, but it could still be a beaver or some other aquatic mammal. Hard to tell without anything to use for scale.

There is also a vertical stationary object in the water that the moving object swims in front of at 0:45. What is that? A post of some kind? This could help give scale.

It is also hard to judge what this object might be without a sense of how deep the water is. Could the moving object be walking on the lake bed at some parts of the video when it is highest out of the water?