A New Hampshire couple is in the news today. This duo has spent 20 years riding noisy, smelly, obtrusive snowmobiles through beautiful landscapes, apparently earning them the bragging rights of claiming to see many moose over the years. The wife carries a handgun and a video camera as proof of the couple's bona fide outdoorsy-ness.
They recently encountered a young moose, as the news stories go, directly on the snowmobile trail. Instead of stopping and giving the wild animal the right of way, they continued to drive their loud, stinky snowmobiles down the trail directly behind the frightened animal as it ran down the trail away from them. When the animal finally stopped and approached them, the husband ran from it and the wife fired her gun into the air. (She said she didn't shoot the moose because she knew the gun would only injure and anger the animal rather than kill it).
The local
news channel has a misleading headline that reads, Moose Charges NH couple Snowmobiling in Jackman, suggesting the couple are victims of the moose rather than the other way around. Now the Maine
Warden Service is investigating the couple to see if they should be charged with harassing the animal. The couple posted video of them following the moose online for the world to see. Since the investigation started, the husband said that he and his wife, " ... inadvertently rode closer to the moose than they anticipated, but were not chasing it ..."
Can't adults find something better to do with their time than ride big, noisy machines through the woods ... machines that frighten wild animals who are searching for food and trying to survive? Animals that are forced to burn their energy reserves running from noisy, intrusive humans, rather than finding food and escaping predators? Not to mention how disturbing snowmobiles are to people who choose to quietly, respectfully hike through the woods.
It is a bit amusing to see people who fuck with nature get indignant when nature fucks them back.
