Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game How to pronounce Shiras

After doing some googling, I found a number of different pronunciations:
Shy-rus
Sheer-us (this is the one I've always heard)
Share-us

This site has a number of possibilities. There are 4 different English possibilities depending on which audio button you push.
SHIRAS
Is there one single correct one?

I ran across this pic of a staged moose shoot in Norway. Pretty funny. That's got to be saddest 'moose' I've ever seen.

Damn, that looks like Pickett's charge at Gettysburg.

Saw a nice one Sunday morning while climbing one of the 14er peaks preparing for elk season. Solid black, trophy shovels.

A moonbeam hiker that I chatted with on the trail told me that she had 'sensed the presence' of a moose. I could tell that she didn't mean 'sensed' it with one of her 5 senses like a normal person.
"'Happy Harvest Moon' to you too."

It's a long "I" in Alaska.

The Black Phase Brown bears of the ABC islands are all referred to as Shirus Brown bears. At least when I was guiding there. I had a client shoot one on Kuiu island which has no brown bears. Thought it was the biggest black bear in history when I saw it. How did it get here? I dunno, guess it crossed at low tide between islands?

I radioed the state patrol shortly after realizing the mistake. Black color Brown bear on an island without brown bears! Jet black as coal but with a dull colored hide, not the typical shiny black coat of a black bear. However when they are in the water and all wet, you cannot see them very clearly anyway. Well except it was a giant!

F&G took the bear hide I skinned for them( trying to be as helpful and polite as possible). The F&G guy on the plane said, I would have shot that one in a heart beat on this island too! No trouble, glad we called it on and did not try to do something stupid! We carried on with the hunt for a black bear. After they left. It was about an inch shy of 9 foot. Best I could measure on the beach with a 6' fabric tape. Might have been a bit bigger...... or smaller?

It's got a better Twang to it then saying it's a black brown bear. I've also only heard this in Wyoming when referring to the moose there. Shirus Moose. They are also quite dark, or near black in color.

Shy-rus is the only pronunciation I have heard. As a student of Etymology it made me look for it and I find nothing else...

This Shiras was up in the driveway at the ranch (Colorado) a few weeks ago when I had to make a run up there.

[bleep]' moose!

Uh, bleep. Yeah,that's what I meant to say.

Me too.

Sheer-us is the way I've always thought it was pronounced!

Me 3

http://www.pronouncekiwi.com/Shiras%20moose

FWIW.

That's the link I had in my OP. They have 4 different pronunciations so I guess it's 'take your pick'.

Sorry. Didn't click the link, so missed it.

I'm in the Sheer-us camp.

Since Idaho only has 1 subspecies, the usual pronunciation is 'moose'.

That link is pronouncing it as though there is an apostrophe before the s, as in Shira (a noun) owns a moose. An old book (1892) I have here lists it as a long i in the pronunciation. It is the earliest version I have seen and the only one other than the website.

Shy-rus is the only way. Anything else is uncivilized.

I hate civilization. Sheee'roosh it is.

George Shiras did much of his initial nightime flash photography work here in the Marquette area of Upper MI.
His name is pronounced Shy-rus.