Fact Check

McMoose

Fauxtography: Photograph shows a moose poking its snout into a McDonald's drive-through window in Madawaska, Maine.

Published Feb. 16, 2005

Claim:

Claim:   Photograph shows a moose poking its snout into a McDonald's drive-through window in Madawaska, Maine.


REAL PHOTOGRAPH; INACCURATE DESCRIPTION


Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2005]


MEET McMOOSE,

PHOTOGRAPHED OUTSIDE MADAWASKA, (AROOSTOOK COUNTY), MAINE,

ACROSS THE ST. JOHN RIVER FROM EDMUNSTON, NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA

McMoose


 

Origins:   The town of Madawaska, Maine, has at least one McDonald's restaurant, and moose are known to inhabit the area, but the critter pictured above poking his snout into a drive-through window actually hails from an area

several thousand miles away.

This photograph appeared in the 2004 pictorial wildlife book Moose Views, where it was credited to Steve Kaufman and said to capture a curious moose at a McDonald's in the city of Homer, Alaska, not Madawaska, Maine.

Coincidentally, Homer, Alaska, was the setting for a series of McDonald's commercials aired in conjunction with the 1990 Super Bowl, based on the conceit that folks so far away from the rest of us couldn't care less who won a match-up between football teams from San Francisco and Denver. Unless, of course, McDonald's piqued their interest by offering different low-priced specials depending upon who won the game:

Last updated:   9 May 2015


Sources:




    Brown, Tricia.   Moose Views.

    Portland, OR: Alaska Northwest Books, 2004.   ISBN 0-882-40587-X   (pp. 12-13).


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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