10/19/2004: Hung moose

[Undertoad]

Geodog points out this remarkable one... thanks!

If it's an animal image, and it's not Friday, it's not gonna be good. And that's the case here, as this moose was eventually destroyed. But he's alive in this shot...

Very similar to 1/15/2003: Dead deer mystery, except in this case we kinda know what the full story is.

This moose was happily minding his own business. And his business was kicking the ass of any other moose in the area. He was in "full rut", a condition in mating season in which a male moose is so horny and full of piss and vinegar that he will pretty much fight any other male moose in the area.

Unfortunately he is a moron, and so sometimes he will pick fights with things that aren't other male mooses but kinda sorta LOOK like other male mooses. Anything that looks like another set of antlers and moves. Pissed as hell, horny as hell, dumb as a stump... we've all known guys like that, and the destruction they can cause.

OK. Now, PAUSE a moment and consider stringing up electrical cable over long distances. As tw ponts out, maybe the lines should be buried. But when they're stringing across the Alaskan wilderness, where there's basically nothing, it'll be a lot cheaper to do it this way.

They've come up with an interesting way of stringing the cable, too. They lay the cable out along the ground, and then climb the poles and hang the cable through an eyelet at the top of every pole. At that point, the wire runs along the ground, except to where it rises up to the top of each pole. They leave it like that, and when they've strung FIVE MILES that way, they just PULL the ONE END of the cable, roll up it with a huge winch, and the five mile long cable is pulled, up from the ground to taut on the poles, with 5000 pounds of force. Cool!

Linesmen came through here and rolled out the cable in this way, days earlier. And then, from miles away, they started to pull the line. And this dumb moose saw this large movement, and decided it was fightin' time. But he proceeded to lose the battle spectacularly, as his antlers got caught up in a cable, and Mr. Moose got slowly dragged up in the line as a winch pulled it from miles away!!!

Fifty feet up, hung by his skull, barely alive, horny, pissed... by the time they got him down, he was thrashing about. They couldn't get him free, and figured he would die if they tranquilized him. In utilitarian Alaskan fashion, they decided that the best approach would be to just shoot him and donate the meat to a local needy guy. And that's what they did.

[dar512]

Let this be a warning. -- Never let yourself get in a rut.

[mmmBoy]

Don Quixote would be so proud.

Never thought I would use "quixotic" and "moose" in the same sentence.

[Cyber Wolf]

When you live out in the middle of nowhere, you'd figure it'd be safe enough to strut your stuff but nooooo.

[mmmBoy]

"Like a moose on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free"

--Leonard Cohen

[Brown Thrasher]

I agree when they took him down, he was probably dying, pissed, and probably terribly confused. I just don't know about his still being horny............ Anyway he won't have to worry about ending up in that situation again. He appears to have sacrificed his life. However, some say something good comes out of all difficult life situations. In this case some hungry soul will have a nice dinner.

[Elspode]

Hey, Rocky...watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat! Nothin' up my sleeve...presto!

No doubt about it...we gotta breed a smarter moose.

[melidasaur]

when I saw hung moose as the headline, i wasn't thinking that this moose was going to be literally hanging - i thought it was going to have huge genitalia.

[Undertoad]

Well the picture isn't that detailed... he just might.

[capnhowdy]

What a really bad day for this guy. Get up ill and horny, can't find a "friend", settle for a powerline, realize you've gotta fight for that, get strung up by the horns, rescued, shot, and eaten. Glad it was only one.
What the hell is the plural for moose anyway? MEESES??????????
Reason for going for the powerline: Closing Time!
Sportsmanship: Getting the moose on the ground before you shoot him.

[Happy Monkey]

MEESES a pig.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Maybe moose get Autoerotic Asphyxiation Syndrome.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by mmmBoy

Don Quixote would be so proud.

Never thought I would use "quixotic" and "moose" in the same sentence.

You didn't.

[OnyxCougar]

"My guess is he was in full rut and probably seen that line moving out there," and decided to fight, said Marvin Pickens, line construction manager for City Electric in Anchorage.

He probably seen that line moving out there?

So it's not just North Carolina. Good to know.

Davenport talked to Hanneman about two hours later and made the decision to have City Electric workers shoot the moose, based on reports he got about the animal's condition.

"It was in pretty rough shape in talking to them," said Davenport. Tranquilizing an animal at that point can be deadly, he said.

"If they're really wore down, they'll succumb to (the drugs) and die," Davenport said. "Then you can't salvage the meat because of the drugs in it."

So Fish and Game didn't actually SEE the moose, just made the decision to shoot it based upon the word of people who string electric wire for a living and use poor grammer.

Mhm.

[Trilby]

Kerry came to Ohio and said, "Can I get me a hunting license here?"

Apparently he felt that is the way we Ohioans communicate. He's wrong, though. Most of us speak in E-bonics.

Oh, well. Back to the moose. Poor devil. I can't help but feel his passions had cooled a bit after hanging by the skull all day. I wonder if this would work for teenaged boys?
(that's a JOKE.)