Today, I’m having moose bone pudding with curried squash sauce, probably one of only a few hundred thousand humans partaking of such a pleasure on this fine winter afternoon.
If you think about it, there were 7,000 moose killed in Alaska, 21,000 in Canada and 32,000 in Russia, and with a decent body size of 700 pound it’s enough poundage for family and friendly experimenting. Colorado has a total moose population of around 3,000, with a few hundred being taken by hunters each year. With a total human population of about six million, not everyone gets a chance to try my particular piece de resistance.
The Centennial State has more than one head of cattle for every two people, so the hamburgers do make the rounds. Not everyone craves rattlesnake beans or pan-broiled raccoon, but in the ongoing struggle of the sodbuster there are compensations.
Meanwhile, people would be glad to know you can buy moose meat online from Sweden — for $75/pound that is — as long as the euro stays weak. This should be good news for the future, as, even though competition for deer licenses has vastly intensified since the game herds across the nation are shrinking and the Colorado mule deer population has sunk from 600,000 in 2004 to 300,000 in 2014 (called the “new normal” at the time) to about 175,000 now; the “good news” is the Europeans, seemingly vastly more civilized than Americans, still find a way to parcel out their exotic meats. They’ve been doing it longer than we have and the primitive method of stomping through someone’s grazing lease looking for horns hasn’t proven to be, in the long run, sustainable; though it’s not a stretch to imagine why the wolves can’t seem to find much out there but livestock.
Tom Anthony, Maybell, Colo.
Two issues lawmakers need to tackle
I have two issues that are costing Colorado taxpayers. One is the exorbitant fees each resident pays for their annual vehicle registrations. The fees are just a way to get around the TABOR act and should be challenged.
And, the second issue that should be challenged is the inclusion of motor homes in the Clean Air Colorado Act. That is a $150 annual cost for an emission sticker that I should not have to pay, considering it is not driven to work on a daily basis, but parked 11 months out of the year.
Just my two cents!
Art Cella, Douglas County
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