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Sunday morning and a call from police central
about a collision between a car and a moose. Time on the road
out to the accident was used for contact with the driver to get
details on what happened and of course some tactical thoughts. The moose had rapidly run out on the road from the right and the driver had almost no time to react and slow the car down, and the moose was hit on the back half of the body. Apparently no major damage to the car, headlight bent and some bent metal parts. To make the search as effective as possible, I called out two local hunters for help as they were familiar with the area, and they were placed where the animal probably might move away from the accident. No signs of the actual accident site were seen on the road, so I led Puzzel to search the road side about 75 meters both ways away from the marker the driver had put up. After a few minutes she fount the track leaving the road and I fully dressed her for work, called the helpers on the radio that we started to work. |
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Puzzel started eagerly and her body language showed me that we had found the escape track from the moose. Really tough vegetation with dense old wood and a lot of topography slowed us down, but she kept on working. At a small ditch the track crossed over five times before continuing, but she solved that problem. | ||
At the beginning of
the track only faint footmarks from the moose were visible with
no signs of any injuries, but after approximately 1 km signs of
blood appeared and quite soon after the amount of blood increased to
almost the size of the palm of a hand. The track lead us out on a small field, but the moose had already crossed over and further into another wooded area. Because of this, one of the helpers was replaced in the direction of where the animal was moving, so after a short rest we started to work again. Puzzel was now very active and her body language showed me that we were closing in on the animal, but we're into some really difficult vegetation so the progress was slow. At about 50 meters from the next fielded area there were two rifle shots, and one of the helpers had put the moose down. We continued out to the field and found the moose laying on the filed and Puzzel could make a proper closure. |
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It felt extremely
good that we could put an end to the suffering, as it turned out
that the right back leg was completely broken and the animal
had been running on three legs. We tracked the moose for about
2,5 km and the animal had really fought on amazingly in spite of
the damages. In this case it showed that although no signs of injuries were seen at the beginning of the track it was good that we chose to continue and were able to put a stop for the yearling's suffering. Collisions between a car and a moose are often quite powerful as at least the weight of a fully grown moose is really heavy. This implies that the car and the passengers are exposed to severe forces in the moment of the collision. But luckily there are mostly minor or even no physical injuries, and the reason for that is new strong car constructions. |
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This was a direct frontal collision with a large moose, and the damages are extensive. But a modern safe and stable construction and the aid of crash cushions the damages were only material and no physical passenger injuries at all. For the moose the outcome was unfortunately quite different. | ||
In accidents like this the animal is often severely, sometimes
fatally, injured and is often laying on or close to the road
where it rapidly can be put to sleep if needed. This time the
animal ended in the gutter at the road side but still alive
where the suffering could be ended. With accidents like this no tracking is needed, but our work is equally important to rapidly end the suffering. |
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