A 70 year-old Homer, Alaska man is dead and a local mom on the loose in the woods after a violent altercation over the man attempting to take photos of her children on Sunday, KTUU reports.
“As they were approaching the area suddenly the moose came crashing out from wherever it was they hadn’t seen it, on the attack,” Tim Kizzia, a friend of murder victim Dale Chorman. “And they turned to run and his friend looked back and saw that Dale was already on the ground and the moose was standing over Dale.” Chorman had earlier captured pics of the moose giving birth to two calves and had been leading another friend back to the scene when the attack happened.
First responders were unable to locate the cow moose and Kizzia tells KTUU that Chorman’s family hope it stays that way, having “encouraged everyone not to do anything to the mom. She was just defending new born twins acting in a way that Dale would totally have understood and anticipated.”
Or maybe should have anticipated. Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Cory Stantorf said to watch out for moose with “hackles on the back of their neck standing straight up, the ears pinned back against the head and the moose is licking their lips. Those are all signs that the moose is agitated and you are too close,” adding that the massive wild ungulates are especially fucking pissed this year due to excessive winter snowfall having made it harder to find food sources.