The Next Central Park Coyote May be a Moose: Young Bull Heading South Via I-95

As New Yorkers, we're used to dealing with our own brand of wildlife. We've got an extended family of pigeons holed up in our air shaft, rats in our garbage cans, and a feral human population like whoa. But in recent months encounters with less-than-urban creatures have been all up in our news sources -- from a surge in the Canada goose population threatening our airports to coyotes chilling in the Holland Tunnel. While we did manage to wipe out Central Park's entire cuddly bunny population this year, perhaps we can make up for it with one enormous, not to mention prettyfuckinballsy, suburban Connecticut-based moose that's heading our way.

Southwest Connecticut paper The Wilton Bulletin has been keeping tabs on increased moose sightings throughout the state. They've been inexplicably on the rise the past few years and "Department of Environmental Protection wildlife experts now believe moose have become year-round residents in [mostly northern] Connecticut with a population of about 100," according to the Bulletin. Based on the dates and notably more southern locations of recent encounters, many believe there may be just one very mobile young bull looking to establish some territory of his own. The DEP has issued warnings about moose crossing highways and potentially causing accidents, as well as establishing a moose sighting hotline.

Missed Connections: 6 ft. tall, about 1,400 lbs. You were wandering near I-84 in Southbury, but were unexpectedly tranquilized and relocated. E-mail me!

"It is expected this moose will continue traveling south," explains the Bulletin, "possibly reaching I-95 by the weekend." If the moose is currently in the greater Wilton area, and if he really is traveling via I-95, he's just 43.1 miles away from the city. At a standard springtime moose pace of 5 miles a day it would take him 8.62 days to hit the Bronx. So we're looking at a possible moose arrival of May 16th. If he's trying to make it to Central Park, however, it could take slightly longer. Google Maps sends him down the West Side Highway which, while not terrible traffic-wise on a Thursday, is still going to be a decent feat, moose-wise.

You know this guy's not going to have any trouble fording the Harlem River like our coyote friends, so we best be getting prepared for the imminent (ok, so it's not imminent, but potentially totally awesome) Moose in Manhattan. Less J.Lo, more REAL MOOSE.