“It’s when you get to Newfoundland that things get really serious. It turns out that moose aren’t native to the island. They were introduced in a shades-of-New Zealand “acclimatisation” experiment at the turn of last century.
And these animals, at least, haven’t found the challenging climate and topography all that daunting. In fact, they are now so prevalent that they’re a major cause of traffic accidents in the province (almost 700 last year, according to statistics).
Because of their size, and the fact that they stand up high on long legs, the crunch can prove fatal, always for the moose, as it bounces along the bonnet and through the windscreen, and unfortunately sometimes also for the human occupants inside.
So in places where there are a high populations of moose, the roads people have added a unique new sign. To me the moose just looks a bit confused. But there’s no doubt what’s happened to the car.”