Elk related incident

I was just catching up with the world news on the BBC website when I came across a story from Helsinki involving an elk; an elk is what we call the creature which in North America is called a moose.

Apparently this poor beast had ended up rushing through the streets of the city and then getting involved in rush hour. There must be a lot of such incidents because there is a particular Finnish word which relates to a car accident involving an elk, ‘hirvikolari’.

We don’t have elk, except in zoos over here in England but there are a huge number of accidents involving cars and deer, would you believe between 42,000 to 74,000 incidents each year…. yes, between 42,000 to 74,000!!! Fortunately there are not that many injuries, but sadly here are nearly five hundred people injured or killed each ear because of deer. There are six main types of deer in the UK, and a population of 1.5 million head of beasts. There are roe, red, fallow, muntjak, sika and Chinese water deer. Another worry is the number of wild boar there are roaming the countryside, and a number of incidents have been reported involving cars and boar… as the numbers of these creature  increase sadly accidents will also increase.

You can find out more about deer collisions here:

http://www.deercollisions.co.uk/

… and boar:

http://www.ukwba.org/#/road-accidents-with-boar/4571975970

and teh poor elk who, incidentally was shot by police after failing to let itself be steered to the sea where it could have swum a way:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27780337