While traveling to work Eveliina Kauranen encountered a strange sight during the early hours of Thursday morning last week, when a elk was trotting along the roadside in South-Western Finland.
Kauranen, who lives in Ypäjä in South-Western Finland, said she was headed from Jokioinen towards Forssa when she saw three large elk on the road. She has driven the same commute for five years, but elk are not a familiar sight along the road.
"I thought I'd take a picture of them until they went on their way. The last of the bunch didn't notice the sheep fence ahead, so it tripped and fell over," she told Yle.
Kauranen stayed at the fence to marvel at the elk's somersault and watched the trio dive into the Loimijoki River and swim across.
"Fortunately, the elk was apparently unharmed and the sheep's fence didn't break. I began to laugh out loud at this elk's Midsummer excursion in the early hours of the morning," Kauranen said.
Elk active around sunrise and sunset
According to the Finnish Road Safety Council, it is at dawn and dusk that elk are most likely to move.
The Finnish Natural Resources Institute (Luke) has estimated that Finland's elk population appears to be on the rise. After the autumn 2023 hunt and a 20-year-low, the population has grown to around 84,000 elk.
According to Statistics Finland, there have been 1,515 motor vehicle collisions with elk in the past year.
According to the Finnish Transport Safety Agency, most deer and elk collisions occur within an hour of sunset. The risk is highest in areas where elk fences begin or end.
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