A car crashed into a moose early on Friday morning near the entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, killing the driver and injuring a passenger, park officials said.
The crash happened south of the entrance to the Denali Park Road near Mile 235 of George Parks Highway, the park said in a statement.
The driver, a 24-year-old male from Bulgaria whose name was not released, was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.
A female passenger, also 24, from North Macedonia, was injured. She was taken to a hospital in Fairbanks, Alaska, about 125 miles away.
The National Park Service said it was investigating the crash and that it was working with the Bulgarian embassy in Washington to notify the driver’s family.
The crash happened about two miles from the only road entrance to Denali, at Mile 237 of the Parks Highway. In Alaska, rural destinations are often identified by a mile marker rather than an address.
Officials did not say what happened to the moose.
“The collision serves as a sobering reminder of the hazards of wildlife along Alaska’s roadways,” the park said in a statement.
The park noted that moose, caribou and other large animals, which are often active at dawn, dusk and night, can be difficult to see because they are so tall that they don’t readily appear in headlights.
Drivers should slow down in dark conditions and use high-beam headlights, officials said. Exceeding the speed limit increases damage and injury in a crash.
Experts also recommend scanning roads and shoulders for movement or eye glow — the reflective shine that the eyes of many animals can have at night — and not to honk at wildlife in or near the road.
Moose prefer forested and shrubby habitats, and are most likely to be seen on the first 15 miles of the Parks Highway, according to Denali’s website.
Moose can weigh about 800 to 1,300 pounds, and they can reach 6 feet 6 inches tall at the shoulder. In a crash with a car, a moose’s long legs would likely crumple, and the animal would land on the vehicle’s windshield and roof.
Crashes with moose can be far more serious and more likely to result in deaths than crashes with deer because of the height and weight of moose, according to a study published in 2019 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
“Deer collisions are indeed much more common, but after controlling for other factors, our statistical model demonstrated that a human fatality was more than 13 times as likely after collision with a moose,” wrote the study’s lead author, Dr. David Clark, of the Maine Medical Center’s outcomes research and evaluation center.
Striking a moose directly often causes major injuries to the head, neck and face of those in the car, his research found.
Adeel Hassan, a New York-based reporter for The Times, covers breaking news and other topics.
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