Moose tranquillized in Calgary neighbourhood
Last Updated: Thursday, June 25, 2009 | 6:36 PM MT
CBC News
Wildlife officers and Calgary police work on transporting a moose from a backyard in the southwest. (Peter Akman/CBC) A moose was on the loose in southwest Calgary Thursday morning.
The 181-kilogram animal was reported to police at about 6:30 a.m., bounding through yards in the community of Haysboro for more than an hour before wildlife officials arrived and shot it with a tranquillizer dart.
But a siren spooked the moose and he jumped a fence and a picnic table before officials could get more tranquillizer darts into him.
Eventually the two-year-old male lay down in a family's backyard.
It took about 10 officers to attach the moose to a sling, and get it into the back of a truck for a ride out of town.
The moose received an extra shot of tranquillizer and an intravenous drip — to keep him hydrated — before the drive west, where he was released southwest of Bragg Creek.
Ed Pirogowicz, a fish and wildlife officer, said several moose a year come into the city. But he said this one — which likely came in from the Weaselhead area overnight — was a little farther into a residential area than some others he has seen.
The loose moose is contained in a sling. (Peter Akman/CBC) "[It] took … a little while for it to settle down," he told CBC News.
"It should do pretty good, but we got to … get it up quick and released … because it's going to be quite a hot day. So we want to move it fairly quickly to a spot and get it recovered."
Pirogowicz said people should never approach wild animals, especially in the city where they can be stressed or feel threatened.
"They can be dangerous. There are people killed — I think Alaska's record is more people killed by moose than by grizzly bears. So they attack with their hooves and they trample basically. So a lot of times, you just got to be careful, stay out of their way.
"They're a big, kind of clumsy looking animal, but they can be pretty powerful, pretty fast."
The moose was tagged before it was released, so if hunters shoot the animal, the tag will indicate that it has tranquilizers in its system which can remain for a year. That would make the animal's meat hazardous to eat.
With files from Peter Akman
