The local Jackson Wyoming newspaper The Buckrail  –Moose have been making a habit of licking vehicles recently. That would be a bad thing.

We humans put salt on our roads. That builds up on our vehicles. These animals like to lick that salt.

That means, to the animal, your vehicle is a big salty popsicle.

“We highly discourage the practice of allowing wildlife like moose to lick salt off vehicles,” Grand Teton NP spokesperson Denise Germann said.

At the Elk Refuge, outreach and visitor services is advising folks that it is a bad idea to let he animal lick your car.

“Though it’s salt the bighorns seek on the surface of vehicles there could also be a whole host of chemicals that could be harmful to ingest—gasoline from an overfilled tank, gas line antifreeze products like Heet, etc,” Iverson said. “The refuge’s bighorn sheep population, along with many bighorns in the Rocky Mountain West, are vulnerable to pneumonia. Licking shared surfaces may increase the risk of spreading a disease, not unlike a person with a cold offering to share their lollipop with others.”

Well now, I bet you never thought that was a problem.

More From KGAB