We got some wild, wild life

Another moose sighting today! This one was maybe 100 feet from our apartment building. We were going out to do our grocery shopping, pulled out from our parking lot and ..."Moose!" There he was, walking along the road like he was heading for the health club down the block. We watched him meander down the street, then went on our way too. Sadly I did not think to get a picture.
I just recently read an interesting article in Alaska magazine (yes, there really is such a thing, and people really do read it) the gist of which is that moose are not really that scary. This was news to me, and I approached it with some skepticism. However, the facts back the author up. Up here, you get warned of the dangers of moose with some regularity. There are warning signs in all the parks, brochures in the tourism centers, all warning about the hazards of moose and what you can do to protect yourself (get behind a tree - they can't get at you because their horns get in the way, apparently.) For all this, guess how many people have been killed by moose in the past 30 years? 2! I will grant you, it sucks for those 2 people, but still, that's not bad odds. Also, this figure does not include traffic fatalities, but only cases where people were actually attacked in person by a moose.
I had actually been wondering about this, because for the past few months I have been seeing occasional stories on www.adn.com ( that is the Anchorage Daily News site) concerning some person who went up to a moose and petted it or rode it around town or some such nonsense. And you know what? Although that person's dumbness is universally remarked upon, that person never got hurt. Now, that's not to say you should be cavalier* around them (the moose). A moose is a big dumb animal that could lay a real hurt upon you. According to the pamphlets, it's not the horns you need to worry about, but rather the hooves, which are sharp and with which they can kick the bejesus out of you.
(* Art's Commentary: Ironically, we drive a chevy 'cavalier')
All of these elaborate warning have started reminding me of something. When we lived in Pa., Art and I had a minor hobby of going to commercial caves - Lost River Cavern, Crystal Cave, Indian Echo - we saw almost every one in Pa and a good percentage of the ones in Va. as well. And in almost all of those caves, the tour guide would tell you that if you touched the living part of the cave at all (the living part is where flowstone is actively creating new parts of the cave), the place where you touched it would be dead and no new flowstone would form at all and you could get fined by the federal government. Then a little later, they would tell you how the ignorant tourists of an earlier age - like about 40 years ago - would touch all over the cave and break off stalagtites and stalacmites and take them home for souvenirs. And they'd show you how much new stuff had formed over the broken bit since then. So clearly they were lying (if touching the cave kills it, why had new stuff formed over where it had clearly been touched...you see what I'm saying). And when I first figured this out, I was kind of resentful. But then I could see it. The two alternatives to their benevolent lie were: 1) let people do whatever they want, in which case they break off all the pretty bits and soon the cave is ruined and no one will come, and 2) try to enforce this impossible rule where they can touch - just touch! not break off bits - some parts of the cave, but not other parts... In which case, the tour guides, who are surely not paid enough to deal with this nonsense, will have to watch up to 30 people at once, which they will in no way be able to do, and people will do whatever they want, meaning they will break off all the pretty bits, and, well, see #1.
My point is, the moose warnings are like that. The real truth is that they are wild animals, and their motivations and actions are complicated. For the most part you are fine around them, but there are rules and signs to learn, and trying to explain is too much bother. And the Fish and Wildlife people do not want to go through the hassle of explaining moose to people, only to have them ignore all the complicated stuff after "Moose are fine unless..." All that will lead to is dead and maimed people and moose that will have to be put down because yahoos were nagging them until they finally flipped out.
Now that I think about it...Moose are scary and dangerous! Stay away from them! And I'm telling myself that, too.