Parks Canada is warning drivers not to stop while on highways to let moose lick their cars this winter.
The peculiar message comes as moose have been trekking onto highways to lick salt off of roads and passing vehicles, says Tracy McKay with Parks Canada.
“It does sound very funny … It’s okay to laugh at it, as long as people drive responsibly and do what’s best for the wildlife,” she said.
McKay says Parks Canada puts out a warning every winter as moose venture down to highways to fuel their salt intake.
“Unfortunately, this kind of puts [moose] at risk of being injured or killed if they get hit by a vehicle,” she said.
“Parks Canada understands that seeing those wildlife is a real highlight for a lot of people, but we ask people not to stop … so that the moose can’t get used to licking salt off of the cars.”
So we gotta start mixing road salt with something super bitter and gross to animals but environmentally friendly, and not more expensive than salt.
In Germany and Austria, there was a tax on salt for cooking until recently (1993 and 1995, respectively). To avoid that people buy the cheap road salt and use it for cooking, such a bitter component was actually added, usually magnesium chloride (sometimes also capsaicin).
Many German sources still say you shouldn’t eat road salt for that reason, so maybe this is still done (though it is of course possible, that those sources are just outdated).
Road salt isn’t processed as much and therefore isn’t safe for human consumption, at least some places are like this.
This reminds me of how during Prohibition in the United States, bootleggers started using industrial and medical alcohol to get around the ban. In response, the US government forced manufacturers to add poisons to all alcohol not meant for drinking. Over ten thousand people died, but hey, at least the Prohibitionists got to feel smugly superior, right?