Q&A: Ches Crosbie Answers Questions from National Post About Moose Collision Class Action

Q: Clearly, a person can't sue a moose for damage and personal injury. But why is the government to blame?

A: It looks a lot less strange when you realize that Parks Canada has been studying Gros Morne Park (in Newfoundland) and have decided to eliminate 4,000 moose out of 5,000 within the boundaries this year. The moose are eating us out of house and home, changing the composition of the landscape in the province and destroying the young trees so that we're losing forest cover. But the park has 25 moose vehicle collisions a year too. One of the benefits of reducing the density of the animal is if you have fewer animals in the woods, you'll have fewer animals on the road.

Q: Canadians tend to think of moose as an indigenous and iconic Canadian animal. But you say in your statement of claim that it really isn't the case, at least not in Newfoundland.

A: It's a Canadian animal all right, but back in the last Ice Age, the glaciers covered Newfoundland and it had to be colonized by flora and fauna all over again around 18,000 years ago. And the truth of the matter is that moose did not colonize the island, they were brought here 100 years ago by an act of the government.

Q: But how can you hold today's government to account for something their predecessors did 100 years ago? How would they know that in a century, the moose would become a threat to drivers?

A: The government runs a chain of accountability and responsibility, but that's only one factor. It does make us unique in that the animal is exotic and, introduced to Newfoundland, it can be called an invasive species. And whenever introduction is done, the outcome is never predictable. The other very important factor is that moose have been breeding like rabbits, far in excess of the ecological capacity of the land to carry them.  The government has assumed a responsibility to manage them properly, as through issuing hunting licenses.

Q: What can happen to you if your vehicle's hit by a moose?

A: Moose are 1,000 lb. rabbits on stilts. When a vehicle hits them, the front grill strikes the legs, usually breaking them, and the centre mass of the moose is in the upper body behind the shoulder. And at highway speeds, the bulk of the moose hits the windscreen and the support pillars of a passenger vehicle crashes through the windscreen and lands on top of the front seat passenger and driver.

Q: That sounds like a tonne of impact.

A: That's literally correct.

Q: So how have moose-vehicle crashes impacted your clients?

A: We're not doing this lawsuit to collect for property damage and we're not trying to get compensation for people who might have had to go to emergency but not admitted to hospital. We're suing for people who were admitted as inpatients, and particularly for the most catastrophically injured of those.

Q: What about the recommendation to "remove" populations of moose. Have you heard from anyone opposed to a cull?

A: No. In Newfoundland, we like our moose. We're not bloodthirsty, out to kill moose for no good reason. And when we do kill them, we use the animal. We like them as a tasty meal. The fact remains that there are 40,000 new moose deposited onto the landscape of this island every year.

Q: What are some other ways to reduce the number of moose-vehicle collisions in Newfoundland?

A: There are proven methods of reducing, dramatically, the rate of collision and injury. One example would be moose fencing, and we've seen that implemented in a nearby province, New Brunswick.

Q: Any word from the province just yet?

A: No. It'll be interesting to see. We've asked them not to regard the people in the class as the enemy or for that matter, the people who are using the roadway as the enemy, but to sit down and start talking with us about how solutions can be come up with and imposed.