An "elk" stuck in an apple tree
Posted on 09/28/2014 9:39:10 AM PDT by skeptoid
Swedish Radio Science News asked about a dozen researchers, and many say the 200-550 kg animals are simply too large to get drunk on the amount of fermented apples they are reported to eat.
Professor Petter Kjellander, expert on wild animals at the agricultural university SLU, says that neither he nor the colleagues he asked has ever come across a test confirming high blood alcohol in an elk.
Despite thousands of people all over the world reading about the aggressive "drunk" Swedish elks Petter Kjellander speculates the animals might simply be protecting their stashes of tasty fallen fruit.
One elk became a world celebrity after getting stuck in a tree while trying to get at apples in a garden in the village of Särö, near Kungsbacka in south-western Sweden.
But the elk - known in North America as moose - do seem to behave erratically in the autumn, getting tangled in garden swings or falling into suburban swimming pools.
And it may be too soon to announce the death of one of the Swedish media's annual quirky stories.
Professor Petter Kjellander says he is sure the media reports of drunken elks cannot be actually confirmed, but he is careful to say to Swedish Radio's science programme that he does not know the answer, and there is a need for more research before we will understand why, as the apples ripen, these majestic animals behave so strangely.
An "elk" stuck in an apple tree
Honest ossifer, I only has (hic) one.
Ooops! Actually, a lot of animals get drunk, whether intentionally or not, by eating fermented berries of fruit. Robins in the US not only eat fermented berries by accident, but seem to seek them out and drop to the ground in groggy clouds when they happen on a source.
Has this guy ever heard the expression “drunker than a peach orchard boar”?
Have a great idea. Get a moose (elk) in captivity and feed it a bunch of Strongbow cider as much as as he can handle. He’ll be drunk in no time.
There was an Elks lodge in my neighborhood when I was growing up and I can say Elks can get utterly hammered. :D
What is the legal BAC limit for a moose? And how much hard cider does it take to get there?
You beat me by 21 seconds with the Elks lodge jokes.
I mean elk (aren’t moose just big elks?)
lol
Oh I know better than that. I used to go to the Elks lodge with a girlfriend’s father and those elk were getting hammered.
Our local Elks have a nice little bar in the lodge...
Around our area the squirrels get stoned on fermented acorns and the run out in the street and get squished. We call it Squirrelicide. :-)
The elks live up in the hills and in the spring they come down for their annual convention. It is very interesting to watch them come down to the water hole. And you should see them run when they find that it’s only a water hole. What they’re looking for is the alcohole.
-Groucho Marx
LOL! Birds in the South are very fond of pyracantha berries, and frankly, looking at the little birdie bodies lying around the bush, I guess the vintage is all one to them. They do recover (if the cat doesn’t get them) and then fly on to their destination, probably with tales to tell...
New book out “Antlers in the tree top or who goosed the moose?”
Tourist asks ranger “How old does a deer have to be to turn into an Elk?”
But they WILL bite your sister...
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