A classic mad moose/Craig Medred photo
An Anchorage man who reported intentionally running his truck into a moose is being praised as a hero by his neighbors on social media.
They have good reason if the story told by Aaron Ramirez of Government Hill is true. Craigmedred.news has been unable to reach Ramirez, but this is what he reported on the website Nextdoor over the weekend:
“I was driving home from my mother’s house. As I got to the corner, a man and two dogs started running for the hills. (It) took me a second to see that moose chasing him. Without thinking about it, I chased after it with my truck; hit it once and pushed it into the woods away from harming this man.
“Be aware of your surroundings at all times especially early in the mornings; you never know what’s out there.”
The many comments on the post praised Rameriz for being alert enough to help out.
“Thank goodness you were there,” one woman remarked.
Iconic, charismatic megafauna, Anchorage’s usually placid moose can quickly turn dangerous if they feel threatened or are simply in a bad mood.
Injuries and deaths
The brother of an Eagle River woman described her survival as a minor miracle in 2017. She – like the man on Government Hill – was out walking her dogs when a moose charged, knocked her to the ground and started dancing on her body.
She was lucky to survive. Several people have died after being attacked by moose in the Anchorage area.
Dogs can sometimes trigger attacks, especially in the spring when cow moose are highly protective of their calves. But the big animals regularly come after people without dogs, too, which is why the Alaska Department of Fish and Game advises people to always give the animals a wide berth.
It helps to know a bit about moose behavior, too. If the hair is standing up on a moose’s back, it’s uncomfortable and quite possibly about to turn aggressive. If the animal lays its ears back, lookout.
Fish and Game has produced a video for school kids on staying safe around moose. Adults will find most of it boring, but about six and half minutes in there is a description of moose behavior, video of an upset moose, and some advice on what to do if charged by one of the animals:
- Run away if you can before it gets close.
- Get behind a tree or car or whatever is available to prevent the animal from kicking you with its front feet.
- And in the worst case, if the moose knocks you down, curl into a ball, protect your head, and stay that way until the animal leaves.
Rodgers, the 82-year-old, escaped serious injury because she had the sense to get a sign between her and the moose and use it to shield herself from the moose’s lashing hooves as they danced around it.
A common issue
When Fish and Game put together its plan for “Living with Wildlife in Anchorage” in 1999, it reported it was then receiving approximately “1,000 calls per year about nuisance or aggressive moose in Anchorage. More than 100 people are charged each year by moose. Many of these are ‘bluff’ charges that do not result in any physical contact between the moose and person.
“However, all of these are potentially serious, and five to 10 are estimated to result in human injuries each year. Since 1993, two people have been killed by moose. In addition, it is estimated that as many as 50 to 100 dogs are injured by moose each year, including those along trails designated for sled-dog racing. On average, about 10 aggressive moose are killed by wildlife authorities each year.”
The numbers have only gone up since then as the city’s population has gone from 260,000 to about 286,000 with no significant decline in the number of moose.
State officials in ’99 estimated there were 200 to 300 moose resident in the Anchorage Bowl year-round and calculated that the population could swell to 700 to 1,000 in years when deep snows drove moose down out of the surrounding Chugach Mountains.
How many rural moose move into the city to join the urban moose each winter is highly dependent on mountain snowfalls. Last year was a relatively mild winter with moose regularly seen at 1,500 feet and higher in the mountains above the city.
But the moose aren’t just in the mountains. The animals can be encountered just about anywhere in Anchorage, including downtown, at any hours, and people have been injured just about everywhere.
One of the fatalities took place on the campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage. Another involved a woman stomped to death in her yard in a Turnagain neighborhood.
Hikers, runners, skiers, cyclists, tourists, birdwatchers, dog walkers and more have been among the injured, and people on foot or bicycles are not even those at the greatest danger of being killed or injured by a moose.
Collisions between motor vehicles and moose resulted in about one death per from 1977 to 2006, according to the Alaska Highway Safety Office, and the death rate would appear to have gone up slightly since then as traffic has increased on Alaska roads.
Many of the accidents are attributable to people driving too fast on slick roads, overdriving their headlights at night or in bad weather, or simply failing to pay attention to the road – the problem now described as “distracted driving.”
There appears to be no record of anyone intentionally running into a moose before the Ramirez report, but a fair number of Alaskans have reported putting their vehicles between people and moose or people and bears to protect the people.
I spoke with two different gentlemen last summer who had encountered moose on the trails near Glen Alps. Both are now carrying two containers of pepper spray each as they had unloaded an entire can of pepper spray on rampaging moose that didn’t stop until within a few feet of them and by that time their can was empty. Neither had a dog.
Until then I had never even thought of using pepper spray on moose but am carrying it now as one is much more likely to encounter moose than bear in Anchorage.
A friend used her bear spray successfully to turn a charging moose around. Not sure if that’s approved but it worked great in her case.
Carry a powerful flashlight. Before entering any dimly lit area, like a bike trail cut-through or wooded path, shine the light down and around the trail while making noise. Continue doing so regularly. (But don’t walk around with a bright light on all the time, enjoy the ambiance).
The moose, whether bedded down or feeding, will, in my experience, look toward the noise, and their retinas will glow green even from 25-50 yards away, further than the light will actually illuminate them well enough to see. The light doesn’t seem to bother them and it gives you time to choose a new route.
Carry a 44 magnum and when those green eyes charge with a flurry of hooves and teeth ,you reply in kind with a red eye. If there are no more green eyes then stay the course. Otherwise fire again if needed. If the moose is butchered by morning call your doctor and share some . 😉 if you have over 25 yards then a .357 will do . Those with a higher tolarence for moose breath can wait until being shaken by teeth .
Add the woman in the Jewel Lake area who tried to chase the moose out of her back yard with a broom. Her dog had gotten the moose agitated. The woman died of her injuries. Then there is the story of the infamous UAA students who threw snowballs at a mother moose. The incident was videotaped including the death of an innocent man…….
I witnessed a man with a camcorder approaching a mother moose in deep snow off Boniface years ago. Reminded me of the people trying to get closeups of “sedate” Bisons in Yellowstone. Anyway, the moose was clearly upset. It’s hair was standing on end(a fact I relayed to the gentleman) and it was seconds from charging. Luckily, the man was young, in good shape, and above the moose on the steep bank below the road. That said, the moose almost caught him. He used the camcorder like a paddle as he dug his way back up to safety. Out of breath and red faced, he said the moose didn’t look that close through the camera’s lens.
Note: moose are dangerous. Stroke-victim Biden was not duly elected. The earth is not flat. And COVID-19 is not a pandemic. The media has been lying to us for years, decades. Mr. Ramirez is likely a hero. Any real man would act in a moment to do something he doesn’t want to do, to save another’s life. I would take Mr. Ramirez’s word on this one. Thanks to Craig Medred for once again reporting accurate numbers to the public. Something the rest of the media won’t do.