March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Moose anxiety may be solved by education

Moose anxiety has been so much in the news lately that a person could get the unfortunate impression that the majestic critter adorning our state seal is becoming a royal nuisance.

The plodding beasts have been making headlines ever since stories started appearing about the expanded October moose hunt, in which 3,000 permits were issued — with another 2,000 possible by 2001 — in an effort to cull a herd that many complain is far too healthy these days.

Then last weekend, under the eye-catching headline “Hazard on the Hoof,” the Maine Sunday Telegram reported the preliminary results of a three-year state study intended to find ways to reduce the alarming number of accidents involving cars and moose on our roads. In the last three years, 2,127 unsuspecting drivers learned the hard way what these lumbering, horse-sized denizens of the north woods can do to a humble family sedan and the people inside.

Moose-wise, the publicity isn’t too favorable.

Outside of fitting them with contact lenses that will reflect light as a deer’s eyes does, or spraying their shaggy hides with glow-in-the-dark paint, there’s not a lot you can do to make moose more visible to drivers. A moose, as any motorist who has been unpleasantly surprised by one can attest, is pretty much invisible at night until it happens to step in front of your speeding car.

The wildlife experts are toying with a few innovative ideas, including the installation of barriers along roads, animal passages over and under highways, and even ultraviolet moose-spotting lights on cars. But solutions like that are costly, and therefore unlikely to even get off the drawing board.

I’m no expert in moose-car collisions — hitting a deer once was memorable enough for a lifetime, thank you — but it seems that the most practical solution to the growing problem is the simplest one being posited so far. Instead of merely celebrating the statuesque Maine symbol as a lure to tourists, maybe it’s time we started telling uninitiated drivers through no-nonsense road signs and media ads that beloved Bullwinkle can also be hazardous to your health if you’re not careful.

I was convinced of the need for better moose-awareness education during a trip last week into the wilderness east of Moosehead Lake. Driving the winding, narrow black ribbon of road from Greenville to the village of Kokadjo (Pop. 4), my animal-detection radar, honed by years of travel in Maine, was set on highest alert. I poked along at a prudent 40 mph or so, scanning the dense wall of trees for four-legged life and seeing plenty. A massive bull moose here, a couple of cow moose there, and all completely hidden until my car was practically abreast of them. At one point, a deer bounded out of the blackness just ahead and into my headlights. Her hooves scrabbled madly in place on the road, like a cartoon character trying to flee, and then she was gone.

Behind me, a car approached rapidly until it was on my tail. The driver then flashed his high beams and zoomed by. The Florida plates told me it was probably a carload of leaf-peeping tourists, blissfully ignorant of the danger that lurked a few feet away in those trees.

Just seconds after the car passed, however, the huge black shadow of a moose loomed in the road. I braked hard, coming to a stop within a few feet of the animal, which stared at me and then loped off to join another. And as I looked at the vanishing taillights ahead, I wondered if that driver had any idea how close he came to being yet another victim of Maine’s phantom roadside attraction.


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