Posted on 02/13/2005 6:07:25 AM PST by franksolich
Angry moose attack dogsled, after another runs wild in clothing store
Two moose charged a dogsled led by 12 huskies over the weekend. The attack came just a day after another moose broke into a children's clothing store in Lillehammer.
The two incidents were the latest in a string of unusual moose behaviour in Norway. The country has a large moose population, but the huge animals are generally shy and stay away from people and populated areas.
All the more reason why Reidar Stenmark was stunned when two "well-grown moose calves" stormed out of a forest in Nordland on Sunday and attacked a dogsled he was guiding.
"I yelled and screamed at the moose to scare them away, but they didn't pay any attention to me," Stenmark told local newspaper Avisa Nordland.
Stenmark was out exercising his dogs when the two moose suddenly crossed their path and started running directly for the dogs. One of his dogs was hurled over on his side, while another was kicked.
"I knew we had to get away," Stenmark said. He said he managed to get his lead dogs, named Sjakk and Anette, to react, but they didn't manage to get all the other shocked dogs to pull together and run.
The dogs finally did start barking and squealing and moving to get flee the angry moose. Both Stenmark and his dogs escaped in remarkably good shape, with only some bruises.
There was no indication of what prompted the moose to attack, just as wildlife officials further south in Lillehammer were baffled as to why a fully grown moose ran through a plate glass window at a downtown shop on Saturday.
That incident began about 11am, when the store was open for business. Shocked customers and staff suddenly heard glass shatter and had a confused moose in their midst.
"I got really scared," clerk Randi Espås told TV2. She and her customers ran out of the store and called for help.
Police, firefighters and wildlife officials quickly cordoned off the area and tried to lure the moose, which was bleeding from cuts caused by broken glass, outside, to no avail. They finally managed to shoot him with a tranquilizer gun and haul him out of the store.
Some officials speculate that the moose was hungry and had wandered into the former Olympic town in search of food. Confused or in a panic, the moose was then drawn by the reflection of the glass window and lights within the store.
A similar incident occured in Elverum last summer, when a moose broke into a local grocery store. In both cases, the animals caused lots of interior damage and had to be destroyed because of their injuries.
Incidentally, the phenomenon of a moose running amok through a children's clothing store somehow seems.....so Norwegian. It conjures up all sorts of images in the mind, of.....Norway.
I think this one might get some attention, frank ;)
A moose bit my sister once.
"another moose broke into a children's clothing store"
Insert Michael Jackson joke here__________________.
"Ping" for the Norway ping list.
There will be no news of Norway this evening (Sunday evening), not because there is rarely news out of Norway on the weekends, but more so because I spent the whole night working on farm income (not my income) taxes, and at 8:30 a.m. (Nebraska time--2:30 p.m. Norway time) I am ready to hit the sack for eight hours.
Oddly, it is pouring rain right now here in Nebraska, the Norway of America, pouring rain very hard with temperatures in the 40s; it feels like April.
I surely hope so, sir; I am trying to "fine-tune" this Norway ping list so as to attract the largest number of viewers and comments possible.
"Sex" stories about Norway, and "drinking" stories about Norway, seem to elicit only little attention, so I am going to see what the moose can do, about garnering readership.
Was that in Wisconsin, sir, where your sister got bit by a moose? Was it a large one?
But did these mooses (meese?) bite anybody's sister?
Now, do you have anything like those stories coming out of Northern Sweden last summer about the holiness minister whose wives kept getting killed by his girlfriends, and so on and so forth.
I think he was originally from Nordland county! No doubt the same stuff happens "back home".
I'm also interested in the cross-border stuff with the Smolt living along the Pechenga.
Yes, I know, and I am wishing you well.
I'm working on it, sir. Over the next few weeks, expect to see a more jazzed-up Norway ping list (anyone interested in being on the Norway ping list, holler at me), stories that sparkle and glitter and illuminate.....thanks to "Inge" (quotation marks intentional, as this might just be her "telephone name") and Beate at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and a newly-discovered "connection" with a newspaper in Norway.
Apparently, sir, the very best stories coming out of Norway rarely make the English-language web-pages of Norwegian newspapers; those are the stories I want, and I have been constantly flummoxed the past three weeks, in trying to get them. But now it appears I will get them.
Frank:
I notice that the story made no mention of the musher being armed against the possibility of a moose attack. From what little I know of mushing in Alaska & Canada, it is not uncommon for a dog sled to carry a shotgun at the ready. Is this permissible in Norway?
Good story.
Tallguy
"two well grown moose calves stormed out of a forest and attacked a dog sled."That's odd.I wasn't aware moose were that agressive.
I'm not sure if dogsledders in Norway carry a weapon to guard azgainst moose, reindeer, wolves, or other sorts of potential attackers.
I am "pinging" this to some of the authentic Norwegians on Free Republic, to see if any of them can answer the question--but as it is 9 p.m. Sunday evening in Norway right now, you might have to wait a day to get an answer.
Bump!
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