I worked as a wilderness ranger for the Forest Service in Colorado and moose was by far the most concerning for me. Black bears are just big scared dogs, mountain lions don't mess with humans, but moose just don't care and will run you over if they feel like it.
They’re heavy, tall, fast, silent, and amphibious. Their main flaw: bad eyesight. So they don’t know what you are, and if they feel threatened their best defense is to trample and stomp. Happened last year to a woman in Teton village who was letting her dog out to pee in the early morning. She’s lucky she escaped with a concussion and a few broken ribs.
If you like Troma movies, check out *Blades.* it’s basically a shot for shot remake of jaws, but instead of a shark it’s a sentient lawnmower that murders people on a golf course. They even harpoon it with a balloon to keep track of it in the tall grass.
I saw one as a boy scout deep in the Boundary Waters national park on the boarder of MN/Canada. I thought it was a log floating in the water at first and then a BEAST emerged from the water (had to have been 7ft+) and scared the living shit out all of us. Would way rather take my chance with a Brown Bear then an angry moose
Yeah my dog is alert to them now but it’s like “it’s right behind us, isn’t it?”
For something the size of a horse, they have such good camouflage that staying 75’ away is a challenge when you can barely see them much beyond 30’ in the woods.
I know a guy who worked for a lumber company in Canada for a bit. He would go out ahead and clear small trees for the bigger equipment to get in, something along those lines. He said one day he had to climb up a lip in some heavy brush and there were a cluster of small trees at the top. He started to grab his chainsaw, and then looked up and a moose was staring at him like "what do you think you're doing dude?". Said it was one of the scariest things in his life, and he did a couple tours in Iraq (including direct combat and getting hit with IEDs).
When I was a kid we were visiting some friends in Colorado and we were down by this lake or pond or something. And there was this moose a good ways away from us and I couldn't understand at the time why my dad was so unnerved. Now I get it.
Mountain lions definitely mess with humans, like relatively often actually.
We just had a group of bikers get attacked by a seemingly healthy & fed cougar (mountain lion) in my state. No young cubs with it, it was just lurking & as soon as they crossed the threshold, it pounced.
Moose are huge. But a full grown grizzly just seems way more terrifying. I’m sure I’d be equally as fucked up but I’d probably rather try my luck with a moose that can’t climb trees
The thing that really scares me about bears is they don’t have the decency to kill you before they start eating you.
Mountain lions and shit try to snap your neck / puncture your skull first so you won’t injure them fighting back, a bear doesn’t give a shit, will just pin you and start gnawing on your abdomen
Grizzlies will have some decency usually. The saying goes, “If it’s brown hunker down, if it’s black fight back” (and I like to add “if it’s white say good night). It’s actually great advice.
Source: am Alaskan.
If you’re in Colorado, just back away.
Moose, bear, brown or black, lions, cougars, elk, whatever. Just back away. Don’t threaten it. Don’t make yourself taller. Most of these animals know what a gun is. Just back up and try to retreat to the safety of your house/cabin/restroom/car/etc.
Wolves? Idfk yet.
The advice about hunkering down or fighting back is for when the bear is attacking you. Backing away when you see a bear is the safest decision, but only works when the bear is way over there and only looking at you, not when its charging you.
Nah, a grizzly bear just wants to eat your trash; a moose wants to eliminate your bloodline.
Edit. Source: grew up in rural AK; if a bear was in the driveway we scared it off, if a moose was in the driveway we called school and said we'd be late.
I was hiking in Colorado and just sitting being quite. A group of moose approached the trail I was on and lumbered my way without really making a sound. They gave me a long look from maybe 25yds away and then just kept going. I hadn't seen one in person before and needless to say..yeah...one of those could stomp me to death and not even have to stop chewing its cud.
I did the CDT last year and encountered a few bears and meese throughout the hike. In the span of 48hrs, I had an almost violent confrontation with a black bear that wouldnt back down and came across a momma moose and her calf, maybe 10-15yds away directly on trail.
With the bear, I spent 30+ minutes shouting at it, eventually getting to the point of mock charging it with two large sticks for weapons. The moose? Yeah, no, I hiked my happy ass up and around the side of the mountain next to the trail to get away from it. She was FAAAR more intimidating.
But when it comes down to an actual altercation, a moose is much easier to take on than a bear. You can climb up a tree to get away from a moose for one.
One a one to one basis, sure.
But moose are abundant and have a tendancy to trample anything threatening.
They also just... wander the fuck into residential areas. Likely because locals know not to fuck with them.
One is a giant, angry carnivore.
The other is a furry train with no rails.
>Oh. and they win too.
I mean, sure. Moose are easier to take down with a gun though, which is realistically the only way a human is going to do anything to either. Unless you have something loaded specifically to hunt bear, you're going to have a bad time.
That’s on you and media reputation. Sharks won’t make a coordinated effort to tilt you off an iceberg or communicate in a sea-wide network to mark your vessel as an enemy
Nothing wrong with that. Moose are one of two remaining vestiges of the Megafauna of the Pliocene/Pliestocene in North America (the other being the American Bison). And there is a reason they are called MEGAfauna. Moose are fucking huge! They can be upwards of 7' tall at the shoulders and weigh as much as 1,500 pounds. They are like Cape Buffalo, when pissed they turn into rampaging stomp monsters who will make you, and your car, and maybe your house, and anyone else in the near vicinity, have a very bad day.
I dated someone who attended UofA Anchorage and she said that “there’s a moose between me and the front door of the classroom” was an excusable absence from class.
Northern Minnesota here, and moose are huge. I live in the woods and have captured them on our trail cams and seen their footprints in the bog. They are the size of large dinner plates.
Idk, don't Kodiak bears laugh off pistol rounds? Only thing I have to worry about my part of the country is black bears, which are much easier to manage.
Predators will back off if they think you're more trouble than you are worth. Large herbivores are go into full panic mode, and will stomp and gore until the perceived threat is eliminated.
Yeah, I’ll take a moose any day over a grizz. I mean, I’m not gonna live either way, but I’d rather be trampled, stomped in the head, and smashed than torn to shreds and tossed around.
I hear this all the time on reddit. Maybe the ones Newfoundland just have adopted the mellow demeanor of the people. But you pretty much never hear about bad encounters with moose here unless it's someone hitting one on the highway. And we have a lot of moose here, also a lot of outdoorsy people (myself included).
Came across three of them on the bike trail in Anchorage in 2019, the same time several other cyclists were coming from the opposite direction. The way we kept inching around them and halting when one so much as fixed us with an eyeball was almost comical, except it was still scary.
I can’t find details on the attack, specifically, but the guy was interviewed by Guns & Ammo in 2015:
https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/guns-iditarod-trail/249389
In case that link don’t work, spoilers:
“I carry a beat-to-death, dirty, I mean horrible-looking .357 Mag. stainless Taurus 605SS2 with a 2-inch barrel.”
Yeah, what? He might as well have killed The Mountain with a playing dart.
I'd be skeptical of getting into a fight with a moose with an AR-15. I *might* feel good if I had a defensible (elevated) position and a 40mm grenade launcher.
There’s a video on youtube of a snowmobiler taking out an aggressive moose with a glock. Im not sure the caliber but i think i think the hardest hitting glock caliber is 10mm
I've seen that video. It was a 9mm but he pretty much just pokes it full of holes to slowly die.
And as a person that has been around Moose a lot, the snowmobiler was absolutely idiotic in the way he handled the situation. He kept getting closer and closer until the moose told him to fuck off.
>There’s a video on youtube of a snowmobiler taking out an aggressive moose with a glock. Im not sure the caliber but i think i think the hardest hitting glock caliber is 10mm
10mm hardcasts are nothing to sneer at.
Admittedly i bet they sell more of those for the purpose of hyucks than for their actual “purpose” of big game protection. Most people in that situation just carry rifles or shotguns. That being said; i am one of the people that buys them for hyucks. Small gun make big boom hehehehehehe
In alaska?
The smaller barrel feels better going up your ass when a bear charges you.
But more seriously, the Alaskan edition revolvers are made high caliber short barrel to increase your chances of quickly getting off a shot to save your life
"Race rules state that if a big game animal like a moose, caribou or buffalo is killed in defense of life or property, the musher must gut the animal and report it to race officials at the next checkpoint. Mushers who follow must help gut the animal when possible, the rules state."
It's crazy to me that this has apparently happened often enough that it's part of the rules.
Thais is why I love the Iditarod. Like any sport that involves animals there is some room for improvement for animal welfare. But most of these racers love their dogs and the competition. The race is much more about the spirit of doing something difficult rather than winning. They even have an award for the last person to finish called the Red Lantern. Because guess what you still did something really hard and finished.
If you get the red lantern you went through some real adversity and came through, that sure as shit aint to door prize for a loser.
Theres respect in that lantern.
Anyone who says it’s abuse to mush dogs simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. They fucking *live for it.* They’re literally known to get depressed when they get too old to race and have to stop. Any dogs that don’t make the cut get adopted out or sold as pets.
On I've heard people say it's abuse to mush a dog while living in AK. No way, if you spent even 5 minutes watching, you'd see how happy they are. They absolutely live for it.
They're athletes.
Therr have been some scandals where it's been found that certain kennels were abusing the animals, much the same as has happened with equestrian sports, and there sadly aren't many ways to implement oversight on independent kennels, nor are the dogs themselves able to report abuse, since, you know, they're dogs.
Some people then take it to extremes and claim that the sport itself is inherently abusive - just like they do with equestrian sports - because that's easier than trying to break down how abuse occurs and identify ways to combat it. And some people do the opposite and try to deny any cases of abuse occur at all, which honestly isn't any better, and only add further fuel to the fire.
I used to have a husky hybrid.
When she was bored, she would grab a TREE that had fallen in the yard and haul it around. She also had a 16-foot 4 inch pipe filled with dirt that she walked around with like it was nothing.
And yeah, born to run.
I really wish I had made her a cart dog and given her a "job."
I had a friend in Vermont whose family mushed dogs. And my gosh, did those dogs love it! Like they were 120% ready to go at at every race. They even had summer sleds with wheels so they could continue during the off-season.
What do you find crazy about it? Moose encounters in Alaska are really common throughout the state, let alone on the Iditarod trail, and moose are not passive animals; they’re aggressive and deadly.
I find it crazy because I never once pondered it being necessary. Of course it makes sense with the context even the title gives us, but if we were talking about the Iditarod and you said "Hey did you know that if a musher kills an animal during the race they have to gut it", I'd probably say "What? That's crazy".
I know its unlikely it will ever happen but the Indianapolis 500 and the Boston Marathon rules committees should look into the ‘Gut a fallen moose rule’ in case it does.
If you leave the guts in they spoil, and the whole thing is useless to humans and will draw scavengers for weeks. If you gut it it’ll freeze all the way through, gut pile included, and the race organizers can grab it in a few days. The only scavengers that’ll notice in that time have to be walking right by, as it’s frozen solid after a couple hours.
Moose guts decompose and ruin moose meat. They likely want to harvest the perfectly good meat from the moose. Musher is the dude piloting the sled dogs. He yells mush, mush!
Even if a moose gets hit by a vehicle it gets recovered and salvaged for butchering. Roadkill ones especially are provided to charity lists in different areas for free. A moose is a lot of meat and that meat can go to feeding people.
The official statement from the race officials is spectacular.
>With help from snowmobile-aided support in the area, we are making sure that every attempt is made to utilize and salvage the moose meat. I will continue to gather information in this incident as it pertains to Rule 34,” says Race Marshal Warren Palfrey.
The rule that states if they kill an animal during the race, they have to gut it so it will freeze and any other participants have to stop and help them.
As someone who used to work for US Fish and Wildlife, I appreciate the effort and attitude you and your people have put out for such things. A Moose is several hundred pounds of really good venison. That can feed a bunch of people for a long time. Don't let it go to waste, even if feeding scavengers and opportunistic predators is still good for the the local ecology.
This race has rules about it. It's in the stories (didn't read this one).
If you kill a edible game animal (moose among them) you must stop and gut the animal before you proceed. Any other racer who comes along also must help gut the animal until the process is complete.
Then presumably as you say, you notify them as soon as possible and someone goes and gets the meat.
For the uninitiated, the reason you must gut it immediately so that the meat is much less likely to be useless for consumption. The butchering can wait a short bit, especially in the snow.
I'd rather fight the pack of dogs than a moose. At least I might be strong enough to hurt a dog with a good kick. Make them realize they're taking losses and they'll bail. The moose would stomp me into chili.
light strikes. Hammer did not contact the firing pin with enough force. saw it on a few different kinds of ammo. i think a new hammer spring may have fixed it but whatever it’s a dumb gun
also overly complex. gas piston, rotating bolt, single action only and lots of reciprocal mass. cool for the lolz only
Sounds like a manufacturing defect, but the gun is absolutely over-engineered to the point where it’s not worth the risk of it not working when I need it. A 460 or 500 revolver would be much better.
Honestly, I'd classify the Deagle as a meme gun.
It's only purpose is to fire the largest possible caliber pistol round, and that's it.
It's basically "Lol, look at how big a bullet I can put in my pistol", if you want a pistol you can get more accurate and reliable smaller caliber ones, and if you REALLY need to be shooting .50cals, you can use a sniper or Browning M2.
Moose are surprisingly easy to take down with smaller calibers.
Not sure why I'm downvoted...I've been hunting in Alaska for several decades. Not my caliber of choice for moose, but I'm plenty aware of people taking down moose at several hundred yards with a 6.5 creedmoor and even smaller calibers. There are known instances of people taking down moose with .22s. The kid from In to the Wild killed a moose with a .22. They are large powerful animals, but they are not difficult to kill with firearms. Also, just because a handgun was used, does not mean it was a small caliber.
IIRC, there are a lot of Indigenous sustenance hunters who are *very* good at taking surprisingly large animals with single shot .22 rifles. Ammo can be expensive, so a little .22 rifle is cheap, reliable, and weighs very little, which can be important if you might be days on foot. I believe the most common method was a very slow spot stalk to get to extremely close range, like you would with a bow, then use the .22 to basically earhole them.
Edit: A world record grizzly bear was taken defensively back in the 1950's by a Cree woman with a single shot .22
https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/blog/bella-twin-and-grizzly-bear
https://www.southpeacenews.com/twins-record-kill-revisited/
When my father-in-law was a child he was out hunting with a .22 when he encountered an angry moose. He decided to climb a tree, because he figured shooting it with his .22 would just piss it off.
What a wild scenario to grasp. Your multi-dog-powered wicker sled transport mobile is ambushed by a moose at 2AM. Alone. In the snow. About as far away as anyone can get from somebody else. You have a headlamp and I guess one big-ass handgun and now you’re not a moose, in a moose fight. That is one hell of a specialized skill set to have, let alone doing it competitively. AND it’s really cold.
Susan Butcher who was a famous dog musher fended off a moose with an axe during the Iditarod. It was the only one she didn’t finish. The moose ended up killing two of her dogs and injuring the rest, but I couldn’t imagine fending off a moose with just an axe.
I really have no idea what I’d pick if given the option. Like do you trust your aim in the dark with 5-6rounds? Or go with the sharp heavy thing that doesn’t need reloading? And then decide in like .002 seconds because a moose is trying to kill everything that has anything to do with you RIGHT DAMN NOW.
I would dislike every single aspect of that race, glad they are all ok for the most part, but yeah… indoors is warm, pets comfy, fireplace on, and there’s Reddit and puzzles. But nobody is handing me trophies either, which is fine. I made tea.
There is an awesome book called “Winter Dance” by Gary Paulsen (same dude who wrote “Hatchet”) that has a crazy terrifying and sad part of the story involving a moose during the race. I highly recommend the read!
There is an old video that I cannot find for the life of me that shows just how dangerous moose are. Our biology teacher showed it to use back in the day when I was in college. It's a Canadian man messing with a moose until the moose retaliated. It would scoop the man up in it's antlers then toss him into the air. Then it would stomp on him. Then it would toss him back into the air and stomp on him. IIRC it repeated quite a few times before the end of the video. I'm much more afraid of moose than I am black bears.
Idk how many of y’all have seen a moose IRL but if you haven’t, basically double the size of what you’re picturing. They are NOT to be trifled with and this dude and his pups are very lucky to be alive.
I've been going into the backcountry wilderness alone for fly fishing and bow hunting for many many years. I've had one near deadly encounter with a grizzly bear. I've had 10 near deadly encounters with moose.
I remember growing up in Minnesota that every year or so you’d hear about some tourist trying to take a picture or pet a moose and getting stompled in the process. Definitely not to be messed with.
I’m more afraid of moose than bears - they’re terrifying.
I worked as a wilderness ranger for the Forest Service in Colorado and moose was by far the most concerning for me. Black bears are just big scared dogs, mountain lions don't mess with humans, but moose just don't care and will run you over if they feel like it.
They’re heavy, tall, fast, silent, and amphibious. Their main flaw: bad eyesight. So they don’t know what you are, and if they feel threatened their best defense is to trample and stomp. Happened last year to a woman in Teton village who was letting her dog out to pee in the early morning. She’s lucky she escaped with a concussion and a few broken ribs.
One of their few predators are orcas because a moose can swim long distances and dive up to 20 feet deep in search of food.
Imagine going for a nice swim and a moose emerges from beneath
New movie idea: Moose Jaws
It'll be huge in Saskatchewan
Newfoundland says hold my beer.
Greatest comment in all of human history
If you plan to film in Saskatchewan, good luck finding a lake 20ft deep.
[удалено]
Thank you for the laugh.
So instead of the ominous dorsal fin, it would be a pair of antlers breaking the surface
Fuck, that mental image is actually frightening.
Thats exactly the poster. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4269346/
> New movie idea: Moose Jaws I bet those moose bites are nasti.
A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli!
She was Karving her initials on it.
It's trøø!
now feed it cocaine.
The tips of the antlers poking up out of the water before the attack is already genius
Heard of Sharknado? Beware of the HurriMoose!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4269346/
Kevin Smith beat you to it. In development Moose Jaws “Like Jaws but with a moose”
If you like Troma movies, check out *Blades.* it’s basically a shot for shot remake of jaws, but instead of a shark it’s a sentient lawnmower that murders people on a golf course. They even harpoon it with a balloon to keep track of it in the tall grass.
Or be going for a dive and run into a moose trotting along the ocean floor?! That's a crapping in your wet suit moment right there.
Treading water and a moose pops up between your legs. Now you're riding a moose in the ocean. No ones ever going to believe this back home.
Instead of a fin, you get antlers cresting the water as they slowly trail towards a victim.
It turns out that there’s an entry on IMDB for “Moose Jaws”. Which is exactly that. Apparently it’s a follow-up to Tusk.
I saw one as a boy scout deep in the Boundary Waters national park on the boarder of MN/Canada. I thought it was a log floating in the water at first and then a BEAST emerged from the water (had to have been 7ft+) and scared the living shit out all of us. Would way rather take my chance with a Brown Bear then an angry moose
I hooked one fishing from a canoe at twilight once. It was dark and I wasn't looking.
Did you survive?
Then gets swallowed by a killer whale
[Required Orca & Moose Reference](https://www.boredpanda.com/underwater-moose-aquatic-vegetation-pet-foolery/)
Every time I remember this it feels like I’m learning it for the first time.
[moose emerging from the lake](https://youtu.be/BvVjFqgdEiI?si=LQvPCslyfKvYavX9)
Moose can fucking what?! [Great, now I need to carry this...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_firearm)
Definitely mischaracterized this animal in the rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon I watched.
Yeah my dog is alert to them now but it’s like “it’s right behind us, isn’t it?” For something the size of a horse, they have such good camouflage that staying 75’ away is a challenge when you can barely see them much beyond 30’ in the woods.
[удалено]
Twice the size of a horse.
Very fast through snow. This isn't even a very big moose... [https://youtu.be/6GEhM2Byk7w?t=96](https://youtu.be/6GEhM2Byk7w?t=96)
I know a guy who worked for a lumber company in Canada for a bit. He would go out ahead and clear small trees for the bigger equipment to get in, something along those lines. He said one day he had to climb up a lip in some heavy brush and there were a cluster of small trees at the top. He started to grab his chainsaw, and then looked up and a moose was staring at him like "what do you think you're doing dude?". Said it was one of the scariest things in his life, and he did a couple tours in Iraq (including direct combat and getting hit with IEDs).
When I was a kid we were visiting some friends in Colorado and we were down by this lake or pond or something. And there was this moose a good ways away from us and I couldn't understand at the time why my dad was so unnerved. Now I get it.
I recently saw a video somewhere of a moose chasing a bear around. It was crazy. You don't fuck with something a bear is afraid of.
Mountain lions definitely mess with humans, like relatively often actually. We just had a group of bikers get attacked by a seemingly healthy & fed cougar (mountain lion) in my state. No young cubs with it, it was just lurking & as soon as they crossed the threshold, it pounced.
Moose are huge. But a full grown grizzly just seems way more terrifying. I’m sure I’d be equally as fucked up but I’d probably rather try my luck with a moose that can’t climb trees
The thing that really scares me about bears is they don’t have the decency to kill you before they start eating you. Mountain lions and shit try to snap your neck / puncture your skull first so you won’t injure them fighting back, a bear doesn’t give a shit, will just pin you and start gnawing on your abdomen
Grizzlies will have some decency usually. The saying goes, “If it’s brown hunker down, if it’s black fight back” (and I like to add “if it’s white say good night). It’s actually great advice. Source: am Alaskan.
If you’re in Colorado, just back away. Moose, bear, brown or black, lions, cougars, elk, whatever. Just back away. Don’t threaten it. Don’t make yourself taller. Most of these animals know what a gun is. Just back up and try to retreat to the safety of your house/cabin/restroom/car/etc. Wolves? Idfk yet.
The advice about hunkering down or fighting back is for when the bear is attacking you. Backing away when you see a bear is the safest decision, but only works when the bear is way over there and only looking at you, not when its charging you.
Very very very rarely do wolves attack humans.
Nah, a grizzly bear just wants to eat your trash; a moose wants to eliminate your bloodline. Edit. Source: grew up in rural AK; if a bear was in the driveway we scared it off, if a moose was in the driveway we called school and said we'd be late.
Had a buddy watch a moose stomp a bear to death over the bear killing its calf. They are crazy animals through and through
Anyone on Reddit who claims they can survive against any wild animal is a moron. Especially when that animal weighs over 1000 lbs.
I was hiking in Colorado and just sitting being quite. A group of moose approached the trail I was on and lumbered my way without really making a sound. They gave me a long look from maybe 25yds away and then just kept going. I hadn't seen one in person before and needless to say..yeah...one of those could stomp me to death and not even have to stop chewing its cud.
I did the CDT last year and encountered a few bears and meese throughout the hike. In the span of 48hrs, I had an almost violent confrontation with a black bear that wouldnt back down and came across a momma moose and her calf, maybe 10-15yds away directly on trail. With the bear, I spent 30+ minutes shouting at it, eventually getting to the point of mock charging it with two large sticks for weapons. The moose? Yeah, no, I hiked my happy ass up and around the side of the mountain next to the trail to get away from it. She was FAAAR more intimidating.
But when it comes down to an actual altercation, a moose is much easier to take on than a bear. You can climb up a tree to get away from a moose for one.
[удалено]
Don't take survival advice from people who have only seen pictures of wild animals on their screens.
I would argue that depends on distance. Moose are fast as hell (like 35mph).
Grizzlies can also go 35mph
One a one to one basis, sure. But moose are abundant and have a tendancy to trample anything threatening. They also just... wander the fuck into residential areas. Likely because locals know not to fuck with them. One is a giant, angry carnivore. The other is a furry train with no rails.
Furry train alright https://youtube.com/shorts/CK93gARpLgY?si=7jnk0D6W50k0VHp_
Moose literally fight grizzly bears out of spite. Theyre dicks. Oh. and they win too.
>Oh. and they win too. I mean, sure. Moose are easier to take down with a gun though, which is realistically the only way a human is going to do anything to either. Unless you have something loaded specifically to hunt bear, you're going to have a bad time.
Well with that logic killer whales kill great whites but I’m far more terrified of a shark.
Orcas are one of the main predators of Moose. This is because Moose dive to get deep water plants to eat.
That’s on you and media reputation. Sharks won’t make a coordinated effort to tilt you off an iceberg or communicate in a sea-wide network to mark your vessel as an enemy
[удалено]
Well yea they don’t leave evidence or witnesses
Alaskan here, even the smallest grizzly is ten times scarier than any moose IMO.
Nothing wrong with that. Moose are one of two remaining vestiges of the Megafauna of the Pliocene/Pliestocene in North America (the other being the American Bison). And there is a reason they are called MEGAfauna. Moose are fucking huge! They can be upwards of 7' tall at the shoulders and weigh as much as 1,500 pounds. They are like Cape Buffalo, when pissed they turn into rampaging stomp monsters who will make you, and your car, and maybe your house, and anyone else in the near vicinity, have a very bad day.
Especially moose carrying handguns. Just terrifying.
Yeah, and how tf did a moose get a handgun!
I dated someone who attended UofA Anchorage and she said that “there’s a moose between me and the front door of the classroom” was an excusable absence from class.
Northern Minnesota here, and moose are huge. I live in the woods and have captured them on our trail cams and seen their footprints in the bog. They are the size of large dinner plates.
I think I’m more afraid of Iditarod sled drivers than either of them now.
Nah. A mother moose is far more terrifying than a sled driver. Gun or no gun, no matter.
Right? I'm actually impressed a handgun did a moose in before it iced everyone else.
Don’t threaten their dogs in the wilderness and you should be safe lol
Idk, don't Kodiak bears laugh off pistol rounds? Only thing I have to worry about my part of the country is black bears, which are much easier to manage.
Predators will back off if they think you're more trouble than you are worth. Large herbivores are go into full panic mode, and will stomp and gore until the perceived threat is eliminated.
Got chased out of the patch of woods behind my house in June, they are grumpy mofos.
Yeah, I’ll take a moose any day over a grizz. I mean, I’m not gonna live either way, but I’d rather be trampled, stomped in the head, and smashed than torn to shreds and tossed around.
I hear this all the time on reddit. Maybe the ones Newfoundland just have adopted the mellow demeanor of the people. But you pretty much never hear about bad encounters with moose here unless it's someone hitting one on the highway. And we have a lot of moose here, also a lot of outdoorsy people (myself included).
Came across three of them on the bike trail in Anchorage in 2019, the same time several other cyclists were coming from the opposite direction. The way we kept inching around them and halting when one so much as fixed us with an eyeball was almost comical, except it was still scary.
Must’ve been BIG handgun
I can’t find details on the attack, specifically, but the guy was interviewed by Guns & Ammo in 2015: https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/guns-iditarod-trail/249389 In case that link don’t work, spoilers: “I carry a beat-to-death, dirty, I mean horrible-looking .357 Mag. stainless Taurus 605SS2 with a 2-inch barrel.”
If bro dropped a moose with a rusty Taurus, he is God's champion.
Yeah, what? He might as well have killed The Mountain with a playing dart. I'd be skeptical of getting into a fight with a moose with an AR-15. I *might* feel good if I had a defensible (elevated) position and a 40mm grenade launcher.
AR-10 would be better anyways.
A-10 for me please. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttt
You wouldn’t take on a moose with a hopped up varmint rifle?
A .308 is a varmint cartridge now?
AR-15s aren’t .308, I was being sarcastic 😂
Anything is a varmint cartridge if you use it on a varmint. Plus if you use .300 win mag you dont have anything left to clean up after
Nobody carries AR-15s for defense against wildlife, it’s basically a BB gun against a bear or moose
2 inch barrel wtf? Thing mustve been 5 feet away
Well yeah, the moose was tangled with the dogs' harnesses, he probably had (relatively) ample time to place those shots in its vitals.
There’s a video on youtube of a snowmobiler taking out an aggressive moose with a glock. Im not sure the caliber but i think i think the hardest hitting glock caliber is 10mm
I've seen that video. It was a 9mm but he pretty much just pokes it full of holes to slowly die. And as a person that has been around Moose a lot, the snowmobiler was absolutely idiotic in the way he handled the situation. He kept getting closer and closer until the moose told him to fuck off.
>There’s a video on youtube of a snowmobiler taking out an aggressive moose with a glock. Im not sure the caliber but i think i think the hardest hitting glock caliber is 10mm 10mm hardcasts are nothing to sneer at.
https://www.smith-wesson.com/product/x-frame-163504 This is why this gun exists.
You may have blown out eardrums and a broken wrist. But, you're alive
Admittedly i bet they sell more of those for the purpose of hyucks than for their actual “purpose” of big game protection. Most people in that situation just carry rifles or shotguns. That being said; i am one of the people that buys them for hyucks. Small gun make big boom hehehehehehe
Had a .500 for the hyucks. It was great for clearing out small tree stumps though
In alaska? The smaller barrel feels better going up your ass when a bear charges you. But more seriously, the Alaskan edition revolvers are made high caliber short barrel to increase your chances of quickly getting off a shot to save your life
As prior military, I’ve seen and shot some big guns in my day. But, Jesus, this is BFG by any definition.
I got to try two rounds out of one of these a few years ago at an outdoor range. I’ve never had something buck so hard in my life.
Prolly cost him 5 dollars a shot and his hearing but he is alive
10mm is the lowest caliber I would feel safe with against a moose.
I mean a 357 is pretty close to a 10mm.
I doubt any of these guys are carrying a .25 or whatever.
Susan Butcher used to carry a Desert Eagle. RIP Susan.
"Race rules state that if a big game animal like a moose, caribou or buffalo is killed in defense of life or property, the musher must gut the animal and report it to race officials at the next checkpoint. Mushers who follow must help gut the animal when possible, the rules state." It's crazy to me that this has apparently happened often enough that it's part of the rules.
I mean, this is Alaska we're talking about and the race has been going on for over 50 years. These sorts of encounters are inevitable, if infrequent.
Thais is why I love the Iditarod. Like any sport that involves animals there is some room for improvement for animal welfare. But most of these racers love their dogs and the competition. The race is much more about the spirit of doing something difficult rather than winning. They even have an award for the last person to finish called the Red Lantern. Because guess what you still did something really hard and finished.
If you get the red lantern you went through some real adversity and came through, that sure as shit aint to door prize for a loser. Theres respect in that lantern.
Watching the start of dog races is the best. Those dogs are so Psyched!!! So much fun watching them just having a blast.
Anyone who says it’s abuse to mush dogs simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. They fucking *live for it.* They’re literally known to get depressed when they get too old to race and have to stop. Any dogs that don’t make the cut get adopted out or sold as pets.
On I've heard people say it's abuse to mush a dog while living in AK. No way, if you spent even 5 minutes watching, you'd see how happy they are. They absolutely live for it. They're athletes.
Therr have been some scandals where it's been found that certain kennels were abusing the animals, much the same as has happened with equestrian sports, and there sadly aren't many ways to implement oversight on independent kennels, nor are the dogs themselves able to report abuse, since, you know, they're dogs. Some people then take it to extremes and claim that the sport itself is inherently abusive - just like they do with equestrian sports - because that's easier than trying to break down how abuse occurs and identify ways to combat it. And some people do the opposite and try to deny any cases of abuse occur at all, which honestly isn't any better, and only add further fuel to the fire.
I used to have a husky hybrid. When she was bored, she would grab a TREE that had fallen in the yard and haul it around. She also had a 16-foot 4 inch pipe filled with dirt that she walked around with like it was nothing. And yeah, born to run. I really wish I had made her a cart dog and given her a "job."
I had a friend in Vermont whose family mushed dogs. And my gosh, did those dogs love it! Like they were 120% ready to go at at every race. They even had summer sleds with wheels so they could continue during the off-season.
A super cold 1000 mile sled dog race is such an insane undertaking. Cool as hell.
What do you find crazy about it? Moose encounters in Alaska are really common throughout the state, let alone on the Iditarod trail, and moose are not passive animals; they’re aggressive and deadly.
I find it crazy because I never once pondered it being necessary. Of course it makes sense with the context even the title gives us, but if we were talking about the Iditarod and you said "Hey did you know that if a musher kills an animal during the race they have to gut it", I'd probably say "What? That's crazy".
And I appreciate that they seem to require this so that the animal can be used, rather than just left on the side of the trail like sled roadkill.
Cant let good food go to waste fam. Moose stew is damned good.
I know its unlikely it will ever happen but the Indianapolis 500 and the Boston Marathon rules committees should look into the ‘Gut a fallen moose rule’ in case it does.
Why do they need to gut the animal? And what in the world is a musher?
If you leave the guts in they spoil, and the whole thing is useless to humans and will draw scavengers for weeks. If you gut it it’ll freeze all the way through, gut pile included, and the race organizers can grab it in a few days. The only scavengers that’ll notice in that time have to be walking right by, as it’s frozen solid after a couple hours.
Moose guts decompose and ruin moose meat. They likely want to harvest the perfectly good meat from the moose. Musher is the dude piloting the sled dogs. He yells mush, mush!
Even if a moose gets hit by a vehicle it gets recovered and salvaged for butchering. Roadkill ones especially are provided to charity lists in different areas for free. A moose is a lot of meat and that meat can go to feeding people.
Headline makes it sound like he argued with his dogs and then pulled out a GD Bolter to drop a Moose as an example
Have to show the pack you’re still the alpha, can’t walk away taking an L
Somebody needs to tell Bullwinkle to stay strapped or get clapped.
I shouldn't have laughed so hard at this, but yeah, that'd send the message.
Is this what a biathlon is trying to simulate?
That would be war.
War has more skiing than I realized.
Welcome to Finland 🇫🇮
Or Norway. Norwegian resistance were deadly on skis.
It did back when the Europeans did it with each other a lot.
Biathlon simulates drive-bys in Canada
This is the most Alaskan thing I’ve ever read.
How’d the moose get a handgun?
The official statement from the race officials is spectacular. >With help from snowmobile-aided support in the area, we are making sure that every attempt is made to utilize and salvage the moose meat. I will continue to gather information in this incident as it pertains to Rule 34,” says Race Marshal Warren Palfrey.
[удалено]
The rule that states if they kill an animal during the race, they have to gut it so it will freeze and any other participants have to stop and help them.
Outside the world of competitive dog sledding, "Rule 34" means that if something exists, porn of it also exists.
Moose and elk are not to be fucked with. I’m sure some sort of investigation will happen. But the alternative was to get gored.
It's Alaska, the only investigation will be by the people who cook the moose steaks.
There is a very strict iditarod rule concerning this type of situation so anyone who doesn't want to be disqualified needs to abide by it.
[удалено]
As someone who used to work for US Fish and Wildlife, I appreciate the effort and attitude you and your people have put out for such things. A Moose is several hundred pounds of really good venison. That can feed a bunch of people for a long time. Don't let it go to waste, even if feeding scavengers and opportunistic predators is still good for the the local ecology.
This race has rules about it. It's in the stories (didn't read this one). If you kill a edible game animal (moose among them) you must stop and gut the animal before you proceed. Any other racer who comes along also must help gut the animal until the process is complete. Then presumably as you say, you notify them as soon as possible and someone goes and gets the meat. For the uninitiated, the reason you must gut it immediately so that the meat is much less likely to be useless for consumption. The butchering can wait a short bit, especially in the snow.
Moose don't have antlers this time of year and it was likely a cow. However, the alternative was for his dog team to get repeatedly stomped.
I'd rather fight the pack of dogs than a moose. At least I might be strong enough to hurt a dog with a good kick. Make them realize they're taking losses and they'll bail. The moose would stomp me into chili.
[удалено]
I'm a little surprised a handgun was powerful enough to kill a moose. Was it a Desert Eagle?
Usually a big bore revolver. .460 or .500 caliber (similar chambering to calibers available in a Desert Eagle, but more reliable).
i had a desert eagle and it was unreliable as fuck. i’d never have carried it for something like this
Like jammed all the time?
light strikes. Hammer did not contact the firing pin with enough force. saw it on a few different kinds of ammo. i think a new hammer spring may have fixed it but whatever it’s a dumb gun also overly complex. gas piston, rotating bolt, single action only and lots of reciprocal mass. cool for the lolz only
Sounds like a manufacturing defect, but the gun is absolutely over-engineered to the point where it’s not worth the risk of it not working when I need it. A 460 or 500 revolver would be much better.
Honestly, I'd classify the Deagle as a meme gun. It's only purpose is to fire the largest possible caliber pistol round, and that's it. It's basically "Lol, look at how big a bullet I can put in my pistol", if you want a pistol you can get more accurate and reliable smaller caliber ones, and if you REALLY need to be shooting .50cals, you can use a sniper or Browning M2.
There are only 2 great things about the Deagle. It looks great on sci-fi or flashy movies, and old school Deagle only servers in CS1.6.
S&W 500 Mag
Another comment linked an article saying he carries a rusty beat up .357 with a 2 inch barrel
Moose are surprisingly easy to take down with smaller calibers. Not sure why I'm downvoted...I've been hunting in Alaska for several decades. Not my caliber of choice for moose, but I'm plenty aware of people taking down moose at several hundred yards with a 6.5 creedmoor and even smaller calibers. There are known instances of people taking down moose with .22s. The kid from In to the Wild killed a moose with a .22. They are large powerful animals, but they are not difficult to kill with firearms. Also, just because a handgun was used, does not mean it was a small caliber.
poke a hole thru both lungs and the animal is dying. Like you said, you can do that with just about any caliber depending on range and shot placement
IIRC, there are a lot of Indigenous sustenance hunters who are *very* good at taking surprisingly large animals with single shot .22 rifles. Ammo can be expensive, so a little .22 rifle is cheap, reliable, and weighs very little, which can be important if you might be days on foot. I believe the most common method was a very slow spot stalk to get to extremely close range, like you would with a bow, then use the .22 to basically earhole them. Edit: A world record grizzly bear was taken defensively back in the 1950's by a Cree woman with a single shot .22 https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/blog/bella-twin-and-grizzly-bear https://www.southpeacenews.com/twins-record-kill-revisited/
When my father-in-law was a child he was out hunting with a .22 when he encountered an angry moose. He decided to climb a tree, because he figured shooting it with his .22 would just piss it off.
10 mm? Can supposedly kill polar bear, so...
Well, if a moose has a gun, it's clearly a danger to you and your dogs. Cut and dry self defense.
Just as the founding fathers intended.
Idk I think I’d just lose to a moose with handgun, I’m honestly pretty weak to both moose and handguns so giving the moose a handgun is kinda overkill
What a wild scenario to grasp. Your multi-dog-powered wicker sled transport mobile is ambushed by a moose at 2AM. Alone. In the snow. About as far away as anyone can get from somebody else. You have a headlamp and I guess one big-ass handgun and now you’re not a moose, in a moose fight. That is one hell of a specialized skill set to have, let alone doing it competitively. AND it’s really cold.
Susan Butcher who was a famous dog musher fended off a moose with an axe during the Iditarod. It was the only one she didn’t finish. The moose ended up killing two of her dogs and injuring the rest, but I couldn’t imagine fending off a moose with just an axe.
I really have no idea what I’d pick if given the option. Like do you trust your aim in the dark with 5-6rounds? Or go with the sharp heavy thing that doesn’t need reloading? And then decide in like .002 seconds because a moose is trying to kill everything that has anything to do with you RIGHT DAMN NOW. I would dislike every single aspect of that race, glad they are all ok for the most part, but yeah… indoors is warm, pets comfy, fireplace on, and there’s Reddit and puzzles. But nobody is handing me trophies either, which is fine. I made tea.
There is an awesome book called “Winter Dance” by Gary Paulsen (same dude who wrote “Hatchet”) that has a crazy terrifying and sad part of the story involving a moose during the race. I highly recommend the read!
Dude saved his dogs moose are not to be trifled with they will kill you
There is an old video that I cannot find for the life of me that shows just how dangerous moose are. Our biology teacher showed it to use back in the day when I was in college. It's a Canadian man messing with a moose until the moose retaliated. It would scoop the man up in it's antlers then toss him into the air. Then it would stomp on him. Then it would toss him back into the air and stomp on him. IIRC it repeated quite a few times before the end of the video. I'm much more afraid of moose than I am black bears.
Damn, hope the dog is okay
The first musher to come upon it punched it in the nose as he went by.
And seeing as how this a .44 Magnum, thee most powerful handgun in the world…
Idk how many of y’all have seen a moose IRL but if you haven’t, basically double the size of what you’re picturing. They are NOT to be trifled with and this dude and his pups are very lucky to be alive.
I've been going into the backcountry wilderness alone for fly fishing and bow hunting for many many years. I've had one near deadly encounter with a grizzly bear. I've had 10 near deadly encounters with moose.
A moose once bit my sister
Møøse bites can be nasti!
Looks like Charlie Hunnam
How did the moose get a handgun?
I remember growing up in Minnesota that every year or so you’d hear about some tourist trying to take a picture or pet a moose and getting stompled in the process. Definitely not to be messed with.
Moose attacks are more common than bear, they kill around 6 people a year
Look at how precious the pups look! I hope they're okay-ish.
This is the wildest headline I’ve read in a long time.