Of all the pesky beasts you could pick on – alligators, cobras, sharks, Paris Hilton – why pick on a moose? Because it looks like a cross between a tall donkey and a hat rack? Because it is often depicted as having a brain as bright as a guttering torchbulb? Yet researchers in Norway are blaming the moose for worsening climate change, claiming that an adult can expel 2,100 kilos of methane gas a year – equivalent to the carbon dioxide a car produces on a 13,000km journey.

So are scientists saying that climate change is all down to moose flatulence? No! It is also down to moose belching. And the methane these generate is more toxic for the environment than CO2 .

It’s true that Norway’s moose don’t seem to lead a very enterprising life. Apart from manufacturing methane, and grazing while moving backwards (because, as Pliny the Elder noted in his Natural History of AD77, the moose’s upper lip is so large that “by moving onwards, the lip would get doubled up”), the moose has little to pass its time. If you could eavesdrop on a Norwegian moose conversation, it would sound like this:

First Moose: Hey, Gunnar. How’s it going?

Second Moose: Hang on, Henry. . . that’s better.

First Moose: Whoooh, Gunnar! How about a little warning next time, if you wouldn’t mind!

But the moose is a proud beast. It’s Norway’s national animal. President Theodore Roosevelt once boasted: “I am as strong as a bull moose.” Moose were the pin-ups of Stone Age cavemen.

So give moose a break. You want to cut greenhouse gases? Here’s a moose-friendly way how: fly on planes less; travel on mooseback instead.