Don’t let moose loose around the road salt

If you’ve never tried to lick the side of your car during the winter, you must not be a moose.

Officials in rural western Canada have put up signs warning drivers not to let moose lick salt from the roads off their vehicles. Moose love to eat salt, and allowing the animals to be more comfortable around cars can increase their chances of becoming a highway hazard.

“They’re obsessed with salt, it’s one of the things they need for the minerals in their body,” Steve Young, a spokesman for Jasper National Park in Alberta, told CNN. “They usually get it from salt lakes in the park, but now they realized they can also get road salt that splashes onto cars.”

Jasper Tour Co. owner Joe Urie told CBC Edmonton that for a moose, “road salt is kind of like crack.”