Friend reflects on photographer, a Painesville native, killed by moose in Alaska

Melissa Reid
·2 min read
5

PAINESVILLE, Ohio (WJW) – Friends say 70-year-old Dave Chorman, a Northeast Ohio native, was an experienced nature photographer.

“We live in a small town in Alaska. It’s a beautiful town on the coast and Dale was really much part of the town,” said Tom Kizzia, of Homer, Alaska. “He really loved to catch the pictures of the moose that gave birth on his property every year and that dense scrub. And so that’s where he was headed when he was killed.“

Kizzia said Dale had photographed a moose giving birth on his property in Alaska early Sunday morning. He returned to the spot later that day to take more pictures.

“I think maybe he was trying to find that moose to see if it was ready to give birth, but that wasn’t the one that attacked. But there was this other moose that had twins nearby that was just in the brush. He must have gotten closer and that’s when the moose came running at him,” said Kizzia.

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Kizzia said Dale loved being outdoors in the wild. It’s something the two shared in common. They also shared an upbringing in tiny towns.

Dale grew up in Lake County and went on to graduate college from The Ohio State University.

“I grew up in New Jersey and we probably had similar experiences of growing up in a place that was, you know, where everything was kind of comfortable and he liked being away from that,” said Kizzia.

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Chorman grew up in Painesville but decided to move to Alaska in the 1980s.

“He traveled across the country and even hitchhiked a lot. He was in his twenties,” said Kizzia.

While there have been some calls to euthanize the moose, Dale’s family does not want the moose put down because she was only protecting her calves.

“That was what moms are supposed to do, right? So I think the family understood that and certainly Dale would have understood too,” said Kizzia.

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