Here (below) is the compiled text from the tangential comments relating to domestication / taming of non-traditional animals.
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Tamed mooses...
You might recall my mention of these in the war rhinos article. Mooses were indeed used as mounts in Siberia prior to 16th century; this practise was curtailed by the extermination of moose riders by the Cossack Yermak Timofeyevich, sent by Ivan the Terrible to conquer Siberia. The Swedish King Charles XI used moose to pull light sleighs, and apparently tried to create a moose cavalry, but it didn't work. Horses are said to panic at the sight or smell of moose, so they might be neat animals to use in warfare (plus they are fast, tall and strong).
All of this information and more is from Valerius Geist's Deer of the World, one of my favourite books. If you ever meet anyone who had read this book, rest assured that they will remember 'that bit about war mooses'. And there endeth the possibility of a Tet Zoo article devoted to the subject...
I once read (in a series of originally Italian childrens' books about, in effect, vertebrates of the world) that there was a Soviet project to domesticate moose that was quite successful. Being a Soviet project, of course, it has apparently vanished without a trace...
Re moose: I also heard that they tried to domesticate them in the Soviet era, as well as eland. I wonder why it didn't go on-- Belyalov's fox project is still running even after his death. See
http://www.bionet.nsc.ru/indexEngl.html
According to Russian literature, tame moose were forbidden by Russian tzars because moose-riding locals moved faster than cavalry. In Soviet times, experimental moose farming was ressurected but failed because moose cannot stand summer heat and are hard to feed in large quantities (browsers).
Nevertheless, moose can be ridden perfectly in marshy ground, are extremely easy to tame and females give lots of milk. Coming soon to amusement park near you?
BTW, in Soviet times, there were some interesting experiments to domesticate new species. Yaks were raised with some success in Siberian tundra. There were talks about crossing sheep and bighorn to obtain tundra-hardy sheep (I would be interested myself why this failed and whether cannot be repeated). People tried to domesticate capercaille . Lots of more bizzare experiments were tried. Unfortunately, information seem to be unreachable for somebody who doesn't read Russian, and any info in Western literature is strangely corrupted to a point of urban legend.
Short info on moose taming you can get in W.E. Sokolow (red.) Zizn Zivotnych, T.7. Mlekopitajuszczie, Moscow, Proswieszczenie, 1989.
The bit about horses panicking at the sight or smell of moose is correct. This can be a problem when riding in forest in Sweden.
Nobody seems to know why horses are afraid of moose though.
