Y'all know how the Russians domesticated foxes? For science?

Well TIL that they're doing that with moose, at the Kostroma Moose Farm, and OH MY GOD I WANT ONE.

y'all

they milk them.

Moose fren

Also, there's one producer in the world who makes Moose Cheese.

It's either Blue, Rined, or Feta style,

And it's $455/lb.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_cheese

And they put kids on the (domesticated) moose, and as someone who grew up running around the Maine woods, this is goddamn terrifying.

Also, for anyone who wasn't familiar:

We've tried to do this the opposite way, too.

The Nazis tried to recreate the wild Aurochs, to have a murderous bull animal roaming the countryside for young German men to hunt and get gored by.

They're called Heck Cattle. They nasty.

They mostly didn't, btw. They didn't really know what they were doing. But they DID create a breed of ornery cows, and that's... something?

Then afterwards, some others tried to make it even better, saying:

"The 'recreations' by the Heck brothers are too small, too short-legged, not elegant and their horns are not satisfying"

So they're working on "Taurus Cattle," like Lamarck here.

Anyway, if y'all wanted to know why I was looking up Moose pictures, it's because they do this super fucking metal thing every year: https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1345935658485915648

A few things, seeing the conversations happening overnight:

1 - Domestication is an ongoing process; these Russian ones are about 70 years in, or ~16 generations. It's not done yet.

2 - I should have, given that, used "tame" in the parenthetical about the Swedish ones; I was /

thinking in terms of "moose from the program."

3 - I live in a one-bedroom third-floor apartment. My desire to have one isn't particularly serious, and should be thought of in line with the standard kid's dream of "I want a pony."

4 - Moose are terrifying. That bears repeating.

Like, seriously, Moose scare me way more than Bears do. I've met both in the wild. The bear, I just backed away from, and found another part of the blueberry patch.

The moose, by comparison, surfaced beside my Kayak, like an eldritch beast emerging from an aquatic hellmouth.

I don't know how close it was. It might have been ten feet, it might have been thirty yards, but I have no way of remembering, because all my body could process was "HUGE - NASTY - TOO CLOSE."

Anyway,

5 - Y'all are welcome to have a conversation about the ethics of domestication, but it's not one I'm particularly interested in having with you. Me talking about this here is not an invitation for you to have it /at/ me.

... I have now remembered, from my ancient past, a story one of my dad's friends told, about how he and my dad and two other guys almost all died trying to ride a moose who wandered into their camp.

Yukon Jack was involved.

It seems my horrorlove for them might be hereditary.