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I've lived in remote Ontario areas and I can't tell you how often I've come around a blind rock-cut corner only to find 4 moose 50' ahead, kneeling in the road licking salt.
I wish we could either switch to straight sand or find an environmentally sound option vs salt.
A moose once licked my sister.
That's always good advice, about not letting moose lick your car - if moose are licking your car, it may be sign you're approaching a bit too close. Once at yellowstone I was driving to the campground and a bison walked up to my car and stood there blocking the passenger door. It was close enough to feel it brushing the side of the car. And there's not much you can do but let it do whatever it's gonna do.
You need to loudly state that you do not consent to the animal licking your car (or standing in your door's personal space). Then they either get the idea and move on, ignore you, or go into a vicious rage.
Or just stomp on you and make you into a pancake. I don't think anyone should really ever get that close to a wild animal on purpose, sometimes it happens but you just don't know what that animal will do. Especially with bison or moose - keep your distance if possible.
Well, that's a brand new sentence.
Maybe Parks Canada could put a bunch of salt licks out in the forest away from the roads?
$27 on Amazon. They make them for horses, sheep and cattle, why not moose?
I had the funny mental image of some intern at Parks Canada getting ahold of the Amazon account and putting in an order for 20,000 salt cubes for $27 each when they have literal metric truckloads of it already at bulk prices.
So we gotta start mixing road salt with something super bitter and gross to animals but environmentally friendly, and not more expensive than salt.
In Germany and Austria, there was a tax on salt for cooking until recently (1993 and 1995, respectively). To avoid that people buy the cheap road salt and use it for cooking, such a bitter component was actually added, usually magnesium chloride (sometimes also capsaicin).
Many German sources still say you shouldn't eat road salt for that reason, so maybe this is still done (though it is of course possible, that those sources are just outdated).
Road salt isn’t processed as much and therefore isn’t safe for human consumption, at least some places are like this.
This reminds me of how during Prohibition in the United States, bootleggers started using industrial and medical alcohol to get around the ban. In response, the US government forced manufacturers to add poisons to all alcohol not meant for drinking. Over ten thousand people died, but hey, at least the Prohibitionists got to feel smugly superior, right?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The peculiar message comes as moose have been trekking onto highways to lick salt off of roads and passing vehicles, says Tracy McKay with Parks Canada.
McKay says Parks Canada puts out a warning every winter as moose venture down to highways to fuel their salt intake.
Roy Rea, an assistant professor at the University of Northern British Columbia, has been studying moose for 25 years, particularly why they come close to transportation corridors.
Rea says the large creatures search for salt in the winter because they need a lot of sodium to maintain their bodily functions.
With December and January being the darkest and often coldest months, Rea is warning drivers to be extra cautious while driving on highways.
"There's been a few projects in various places that have tried salt alternatives, but they tend to be more expensive or they don't work as well or both," she said, adding the warning is a way to preserve Canada's moose population.
The original article contains 553 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I'd be interested to hear how your supposed to stop the moose once it's decided its going to lick your car.
Better yet quit covering the roads with salt, which corrodes vehicles and is bad for waterways.
I agree with you but what are they going to use to keep roads from being lethal in certain winter conditions?
And that's the problem. There are alternatives but until the feds actively push municipal/provincial gov'ts to change, they'll just keep using salt or liquid saline solutions.
I just saw another thread where someone said they use sodium formate because it doesn't fuck up their cars or concrete and is safer for their dogs. I haven't looked deeply into it though.
With further gov't-funded research I'm sure we could find more alternatives.
Salt is the most effective and less damaging treatment for icy roads.
This isn't world news
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