Moose tracks in your yard: good if you are having an ice cream social, bad if you are assessing massive amounts of property damage…
Dubbed “the rut,” it is the annual autumn mating season where mature bull moose engage in violent, high-stakes battles to establish dominance and secure exclusive breeding rights with cows.
Because female moose are only in estrus for a remarkably short window, sometimes as short as just 24 hours, the competition among males is fierce, turning normally solitary bulls into highly aggressive combatants.
Rut Battles
Because actual combat requires a massive expenditure of energy and carries a high risk of injury, bulls first try to win through intimidation. They thrash trees and brush with their antlers to demonstrate strength, urinate to mark their scent, and walk parallel to one another to show off their massive body size and antler spread. If a smaller bull realizes he is outmatched, he will usually retreat…
But if two evenly matched bulls refuse to back down, they lower their heads and charge, violently crashing their antlers together. A mature bull can weigh between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds and possess an antler spread of up to six feet, making the initial impact incredibly powerful.
Once their antlers are locked, the battle becomes a brutal, grueling pushing match. Bulls rely on their immense neck muscles and explosive leg drive to shove their opponent backward. They will violently twist their heads from side to side, attempting to throw the other bull off balance and expose his vulnerable flanks.
While the fight typically ends when one bull is exhausted or overpowered and turns to flee, sometimes bulls can suffer deep puncture wounds, gouged eyes, and broken ribs. In rare but catastrophic instances, the intricate tines of their antlers become permanently locked together… which means both will probably starve if they don’t get them unlocked.
A Front-Row Seat
A homeowner in Homer, Alaska, got a front-row seat to this natural phenomenon, and was left picking up the pieces of her entire backyard.
Holly Keintz, the owner of the house in Alaska, was beside herself as she helplessly watched the two moose engage in the heavyweight battle of the century right outside the window. Her dog started barking at the commotion happening outside, which alerted Keintz to rush to her window to capture this wild encounter in real time.
She also reacted in real time, saying this as she witnessed the moose breaking through her privacy fence like it was made out of popsicle sticks:
“Oh my gosh, no! No! Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh…. are you f***** kidding me moose?”
Such a natural reaction to what was taking place right in front of her, and to be honest, the crazy situation called for more cursing. You’ll hear her letting them loose in the video below, but just by my personal opinion, the moment deserved a lot more.
In a sort of “calm before the storm” moment in the clip, one of the moose actually backs up through the fence, and leaves the other standing alone and looking around. The woman filming chooses this as her opportunity to crack open the door and yell:
“Get out of here! Go! Go, go, go! Get out of here freaking moose.”
And it genuinely looked like the moose was going to listen, that is until the woman’s daughter warned that the big beast “was coming back,” and the other moose came crashing back into the yard to lock antlers once again.
In arguably the funniest part of the video, the mother and daughter call the “dad” and try to explain to him over the phone the craziness that is unfolding between the two moose in the yard. Shortly before the dad picks up the phone, Holly can be heard saying:
“I wonder if this can be an insurance claim…”
While they are explaining the situation over the phone call, the moose briefly take a break from cracking antlers before they start back up again and continue to decimate anything they come across. The dad’s advice on how to handle the situation actually proved to be incredibly helpful:
“Get better video, because you’re gonna get a million hits.”
He wasn’t wrong…
The pair of moose go at it for a good six minutes before the video wraps up, and the whole thing is full of non-stop action and curse-riddled commentary.
Check it out:
Unbelievable…
As it turns out, this moose encounter is a story in two parts. Holly posted another video to her YouTube channel documenting all of the damage that the moose battle left behind.
The clip is dramatically titled “The Aftermath,” and shows the home’s blood stained porch, mangled fence, and Holly’s scratched up vehicle:
