AMHERST – A young moose found sleeping near the driveway of a Trillium Way home as the residents were about to go out on a morning walk Wednesday was safely removed from the neighborhood by a state wildlife team.
Lynn Alfred said she and her husband, Pierre, noticed the moose at 7 a.m., seemingly happy and content.
“It looked very peaceful lying under the tree,” Alfred said. “But we didn’t dare get too close to it.”
In fact, her husband opted against leaving for work right away out of concern that if he began driving the vehicle out the driveway the moose might be harmed.
Though they had previously seen a bear and three cubs in the neighborhood, Alfred said it was the first time they got to see a moose close up.
Ralph Taylor, district manager for the Connecticut Valley District of the state’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, said he was summoned to the Amherst Woods neighborhood by Carol Hepburn, the town’s animal welfare officer, after she had spent recent days being dispatched to reports of the moose and shooing the animal out of the road.
The Alfreds called Hepburn when they spotted the moose.
The bull moose, about 1½ years old and 600 pounds, was lethargic and had a heavy winter tick load, said Taylor, speaking by phone Wednesday afternoon.
Because it was so slow moving after being awoken, state officials used a jab pole to administer a drug to immobilize the animal, rather than firing an injection from a dart gun, Taylor said. It took about five minutes for the drug to take effect.
Taylor said the moose was then loaded onto a pickup truck with assistance from the Department of Public Works, and taken to an undisclosed wildlife location, where officials waited for it to wake up and walk away.
The long-term prognosis for the moose to recover from the ticks is not good, Taylor said.
“We gave it a chance to survive,” Taylor said. “But I don’t know if we did it any favors.”
He said it is essential that the moose start eating again, which will be a challenge because of the number of ticks and the toll they have taken on the animal. The moose has scraped off much of its fur – and the ticks – by rubbing up against trees, but there are parts of the animal, including its neck, where the tick infestation remains.
Hepburn said the moose had been throughout Amherst Wood,where it was approached and photographed by a number of people.
While the moose would not intentionally charge at people, and this animal appeared to not be frightened by humans, Hepburn said people should always be cautious about approaching wildlife.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
