Moose season begins today
in New Brunswick , Canada
Three days of “harvesting.”
The humble moose (alces alces)
has become something of a celebrity
in the world of marketing.
This summer the stores in Bar Harbor , Maine
were full of moose tee-shirts, caps,
posters and such like.
(Not to mention candy “moose droppings”
and “moose pee.” Seriously.)
The moose is, of course, well-known as an icon
throughout Canada and the northern USA
What I didn’t know is that northern Europe and Asia
boast large populations of moose as well.
and hunters there kill 150,000 animals a year,
more than the total killed annually
in all of North America .
Moose are called “European elk” in Eurasia ,
not to be confused with
the North American wapiti (cervus canadensis).
The largest moose subspecies is found in Alaska and Yukon
These bulls average 7 feet high at the shoulder
with a 6-foot antler span
and a weight of 1400 pounds.
Read more HERE.
What a strange beast the adult moose looks! I love the video clip - the calves (if that is the right term) are delightful, and don't look so daft as their mum!
ReplyDeleteAre they farmed at all, or are they all wild Gary?
Yes indeed! The calves are cute (even in their ugliness). Moose farming has been tried, I think, on a small scale (see Wikipedia article) but with no great success. When cars run into moose, the results can be horrible, with the moose's body often going through the windshield. In high school (in Nova Scotia) I had a teacher from India who ran into one at night. It totaled his car (fortunately he was not hurt). He had no idea what kind of animal it was.
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