A few centuries ago when horse cavalries were still a thing, King Karl XI of Sweden decided that he wanted a more ferocious animal to replace his horses.
An animal that would send the horses of the enemies fleeing the battlefield at first sight, he settled on the moose, but unfortunately for the king, the plan never worked out.
As he later found out, the moose was too dangerous to approach, this worsened during mating season when it got uncontrollably aggressive. and besides, the moose is susceptible to disease and has a varied diet that is difficult to provide.
Moose are also smart creatures and will usually avoid the war front, thus when they did go near the battlefield, they fled the moment another moose was killed. Other attempts to use them as meat were unsuccessful, they would refuse to go to the slaughterhouse when they realized that the moose taken there earlier did not return.
Despite these challenges, there is an ongoing moose domestication project at Kostroma elk farm in Kostroma, Russia.
The project started in the 1930s when Joseph Stalin decided to set up a moose cavalry. Like King Karl XI’s plan, Stalin’s project failed, but Nikita Khrushchev revived it when he attempted to domesticate moose for meat, this also failed, and several moose farms shut down, however, the Kostroma elk farm remained functional and is still trying to domesticate the moose. Primarily, the facility is used for the production of moose’s milk now.
Author OLIVER TAYLOR FEBRUARY 6, 2019
