Alaska: "Like a hurricane": Moose fight destroys women's yard

"Like a hurricane": Moose fight destroys women's yard

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Two moose wrought havoc at a home in Homer, Alaska, getting into a bloody fight that caused significant damage to a woman’s yard and car.

The so-called animal: "moose" or "elk" is the only species in the genus Alces. The moose is the tallest and second-largest land mammal in North America, only falling short of the American buffalo in terms of mass. It is the largest and heaviest extant species of deer. Most adult male moose have distinctive broad, palmate ("open-hand shaped") antlers; most other members of the deer family have antlers with a dendritic ("twig-like") configuration. Moose typically inhabit boreal forests and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests of the Northern Hemisphere in temperate to subarctic climates. Hunting and other human activities have caused a reduction in the size of the moose's range over time. It has been reintroduced to some of its former habitats. Currently, most moose occur in Canada, Alaska, New England (with Maine having the most of the contiguous United States), New York State, Fennoscandia, the Baltic states, Poland, Kazakhstan, and Russia.

The moose food diet consists of both terrestrial and aquatic vegetation. Predators of moose include wolves, bears, humans, wolverines (rarely), and (while swimming in the ocean) orcas. Unlike most other deer species, moose do not form herds and are solitary animals, aside from calves who remain with their mother until the cow begins estrus (typically at 18 months after birth of the calf), at which point the cow chases them away. Although generally slow-moving and sedentary, moose can become aggressive, and move quickly if angered or startled. Their mating season in the autumn indeed features energetic fights between males competing for a female.

What are extant animals:

Extant describes species that DO exist. Virtually every creature you hear about on Something Wild is extant. Extinct and extant are opposites, leaving extirpation somewhere in the middle. Biologists use extirpated to describe species that no longer exist in a specific region.