Saturday, March 10, 2007

Moose on Highway

My drive home yesterday afternoon was interrupted for an hour by three moose that had wandered on to the Trans Canada Highway near St. John's. I was about 20 cars back and couldn't see what was happening, but when we were in a small valley, I had a great view of the moose who were obviously stressed by all the traffic.

The first photo shows a truck who's driver took a chance on passing the large animals. I was lucky to have my camera focused on the animals when he attempted to do this. The adult moose was obviously NOT happy that the vehicle was so close. It looks like it tried to attack the truck, and that was reported on the media, but I thought it was frightened and when it tried to move, it's legs slipped on the highway and it nearly fell.

The second photo shows the moose standing between the traffic and its two calves. No one else tried to pass the animals after that.

The RCMP showed up, but the sirens and loud noises didn't scare the already-stressed animals. Note the size of the animals compared to the vehicles.

In the third photo you will see that a vehicle from the Wildlife Division joined the front of the long line of traffic. Both the RCMP and Wildlife vehicles attempted to herd the moose off the highway, but the adult moose was having none of that. When I took this photo, the calves were nowhere to be seen. Traffic started to move but as I passed the moose who had moved to the side of the road, I took one last photo.

My son called after I got home and he was still caught in the traffic. I assume the moose found their way back to the road and continued to hold up traffic.







2 comments:

bearkat said...

loved seeing the moose..reminds me of Jasper..saw some up close, as well as in Kananskis Country..they are huge!!!!
Your flower pic the other day..almost looked like a member of the marigold family!!

bearkat said...

don't know it the earlier comments came through..loved seeing the moose...reminded me of Jasper..I some some up close, and in Kananskis Country too. They are huge!! Wouldn't want to mess with one of them!! Your flower pic the other day...might have been from the marigold family, at least the buds looked like it. Pretty though!!!

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