Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
mulation of winter road salt that collects in wet areas beside highways, and this makes nighttime travel
doubly hazardous along these “salt licks.”
Although it's advisable to slow down when driving through moose country, especially at night, that's
no guarantee against a collision with a moose. I've personally known of several people who slowed
down substantially because they were afraid of hitting a moose—and hit one anyway!
People often suggest mooseproof fencing along highways to prevent accidents. Proper fencing does,
in fact, work very well, but it's prohibitively expensive for all but very short stretches of highway. For
example, in 1987, Alaska fenced a ten-mile section of high-speed highway out of Anchorage, where
there were many collisions with moose each year. The strategy worked, but it cost $1.25 million just
for that ten miles, and the cost today would probably be at least 50 percent higher. Clearly, fencing isn't
an option except in the most unusual circumstances.
A third serious problem is due almost entirely to human idiocy, which sometimes knows no bounds.
At least partially because of the influence of Bullwinkle, the cartoon character, far too many people re-
gard moose as oversized woodland bovines, placid, benign, and cuddly. As a result, they constantly put
themselves in danger by trying to approach moose too closely—or even pet or hug them!
My files contain numerous accounts of people who have been killed or seriously injured by moose,
as well as other examples of individuals who took horrible—and inexcusably stupid—chances and were
fortunate enough to walk away unscathed. Evidently, fortune sometimes favors fools.
One of the most egregious examples concerns a woman attempting to pet a “tame” moose that had
been hanging around, attracting crowds of spectators. A newspaper photo showed her reaching up to
pat the cow moose: the moose, registering its extreme displeasure, had her nose pointed skyward and
her ears laid back nearly flat, much in the manner of an angry house cat. That was bad enough, but the
caption informed us that the woman had attempted this earlier and been kicked by the moose! This is
enough to make one wonder if humans actually do sit atop the scale of animal intelligence.
Even those who should know better are sometimes a party to such dangerous foolishness. For in-
stance, just last year the magazine of a national conservation organization featured a two-page color
photo of a man in Quebec hugging a moose. Several letters to the editor pointed out that the photo
would only encourage others to engage in such dangerous behavior and urged that some kind of retrac-
tion or warning be printed. There was no reply, which surely tells us something about their sense of
editorial responsibility.
Moose are large, powerful, wild, and unpredictable, and hence potentially very dangerous. They
should
never
be approached closely except by a trained and qualified person, such as a biologist or
conservation officer. Unpredictability is the key word here. Yes, there are times when moose act ex-
ceedingly tame, and a person is able to walk up and touch one with impunity. On other occasions these
seemingly tame moose can lash out unexpectedly, with decidedly detrimental results to the human in-
volved. The problem is that there's no way to tell in advance which way a moose will react.
