Sharp Increase In Moose Muggings
While we're all for suppressing the Animal Uprising™, we aren't sure that Utah's strategy of mugging moose is an effective way to combat the insurrection. After all, moose, being moose, have no pockets and therefore carry nothing worth stealing.
HUNTSVILLE, Utah - It was a rough day to be a moose. Several were stalked by helicopter, captured with a net, blindfolded and then airlifted to trailers for a six-hour drive. The moose woke up in Utah on Friday but were going to sleep in Colorado.
The strategy helps Utah cure a moose overpopulation while raising the number in Colorado. In return, Utah will get big horn sheep.
Wildlife officers hope to catch 25 moose through Saturday in northern Utah and transplant them to western Colorado.
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On Friday, wranglers in a helicopter shot nets over the moose. A person called a "mugger" tied the animals' legs and put a blind over their eyes and cotton in their ears.
"I've never mugged a moose, but I guess they're pretty wimpy once they're on the ground," Dolling said.
The moose were then released from the net and wrapped in a large canvas sack to be airlifted to a staging area where veterinarians examined them and gave them antibiotics.
As we said, we aren't real sure this is going to be effective. Besides, officials in Colorado are in the process of catching a few sheep to send to Utah for a vacation. Is that any way to fight animal terrorism? We aren't the only ones to question this tactic, either. Representative Barney Frank has denounced the "ethnic cleansing" of Utah's moose and has said it is all a plot to make the state's animal population more sheepish.
By Brass, Saturday, 6 January , 2007 @ 4:04 pm
Good lord, just what we need here. My buddy just ran into an elk yesterday and totalled his Saab. A moose would take out a semi.
By Gaius, Saturday, 6 January , 2007 @ 4:15 pm
Moose are VERY dangerous to hit with a car. The legs snap and they land right in the front seat. Lots of fatalities in car-moose accidents. Not just the moose, either.