Anchorage Daily News

Downtown Anchorage's moose, now sober and fresh off a shoot for a national TV spot, was spotted Thursday near Ship Creek with an injury that appeared to be the result of being hit by a vehicle, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The moose known as Buzzwinkle was spotted eating birch twigs near the Ship Creek Comfort Inn with what Anchorage-area wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott described as a "football-sized lump" on his left hip.

Buzzwinkle earned his sobriquet in November, when the dazed and steam-snorting bull moose was spotted in the courtyard of Bernie's Bungalow Lounge, Christmas lights from Town Square tangled in his antlers and apparently drunk after eating fermented crab apples. Inebriation did not appear to be a factor in this week's accident, Sinnott said.

"He's perfectly sober right now -- stone-cold sober," Sinnott said. "But he is kind of slow because of his injuries."

A film crew with the Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" show was in town last month and tailed Buzzwinkle to get footage of a moose walking the streets of downtown Anchorage, Sinnott said. Buzzwinkle, whom Sinnott called a "role model" for proper street crossings, is deliberate enough to look both ways, the biologist said.

"Here he is showing the proper way to cross the road to the 'MythBusters' people and he still gets hit by a car," Sinnott said. "I guess he didn't look both ways this time."

The episode, scheduled to run sometime this spring, in part involves a myth about vehicle-moose collisions that appears to have originated in the Lower 48, he said.

The myth is that if a driver accelerates -- or lets off the brake -- at the right moment, the hood of the car will raise up enough to prevent the moose from rolling into the windshield, Sinnott said.

"I told them it's a wacky idea because (the difference) has got to be so minute that the moose is going to come across your hood anyway," he said.

The crew was planning to run a car into a dummy moose to test the theory, he said.

Buzzwinkle is recognizable by a tag attached by Fish and Game several years ago, after an earlier set-to between the moose and a swing set or hammock, Sinnott said.

The lump the bull is sporting now could be a sign of a fractured hip, or possibly just swelling from the impact of whatever vehicle hit him, he said. The injury did not appear severe, as the moose was able to put his weight on it, but Sinnott is planning to monitor his condition.

"He looked like he was using his leg enough that he won't have to be put down," Sinnott said. "I think he's going to be OK."

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.

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