900-pound moose roams into New Mexico city. See how many officers it took to lift it
A massive moose wandered right into a popular walking area in a New Mexico city — and while he looked pretty out of place, he refused to budge, photos show.
New Mexico Department of Game and Fish officials got the unusual call from Animal Services just after 8 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 12, alerting them of the moose’s presence near Fort Marcy Park in downtown Santa Fe, officials said in a news release.
They tracked the moose to the intersection of Grant Avenue and Rosario Boulevard, and set up a perimeter around it to separate him from residents and visitors, officials said in the release.
Since the moose showed up, he had moved closer to more crowded urban areas, where he was dangerously near cars and other hazards such as fences he could become entangled in, officials said.
And it didn’t look like he was about to leave anytime soon, officials said.
He “showed little fear of humans or pets,” which worried officials and residents alike, officials said.
Moose are known for being territorial and aggressive toward people and pets — especially when they’re bulls and it’s around breeding season (known as the “rut”) in late September, officials said.
Officials decided to sedate him so they could take him somewhere better suited for moose, officials said. The ungulates need a “cool climate and wetland habitat next to rivers and streams” — not too common in Santa Fe’s desert climate.
Photos show it took about a dozen officers to tranquilize the moose and load him into a trailer.
One of them is even tasked with stabilizing the moose’s head — via his antlers, photos show.
Video footage sent to the Santa Fe New Mexican shows the team grunting as it hoists the huge animal — who locals affectionately nicknamed “Marty Moose” — into the trailor, antlers last.
Officials didn’t say how far the trip was, but a photo shows the moose looking relieved as he steps out of the trailer.
“He’s smiling,” someone commented on Facebook.
Another photo shows the moose walking through a field with mountains in the distance behind him.
A department veterinarian determined the moose is 4 or 5 years old and weighs a healthy 900+ pounds, officials said. Mature bull moose in the western region of North America can grow to 1,200 pounds, officials said.
Stewart Lily, chief of the department’s Wildlife Management Division, said in the release they took the moose to northern New Mexico. While there aren’t any moose there now, he’ll be much closer to existing moose populations in southern Colorado, where officials think he came from perhaps a few years ago.
“This moose will hopefully find a happy ending to its long journey,” officials said in the release. “We are happy to see a positive outcome for this moose, who can now thrive in quality habitat where it does not pose a threat to public safety.”
The Game and Fish department’s biologists believe this could be the same moose spotted in the southern Sangre de Cristo mountains last autumn, and then seen many more times near Ski Santa Fe throughout the winter, officials said.
The image of that moose trotting down the road near the ski resort stunned witnesses in December, McClatchy News previously reported. A video of the sighting went viral.
The moose hadn’t been spotted again until it showed up about six miles north in the Tesuque area last week, officials said.
The appearance in Santa Fe was one of the southernmost sightings of moose in New Mexico, officials said.
Moose are protected game animals in New Mexico, and there’s no open hunting season on them, officials said. It’s illegal to harvest them in the state.
There have been nearly a dozen official sightings of different moose in New Mexico in the last decade, officials said. Most of the time they’re younger males that venture down from Colorado to search for new habitat and breeding opportunities, officials said.
Females have also been spotted, but there aren’t any known breeding populations of moose in New Mexico, officials said.
This story was originally published September 14, 2023 at 2:13 PM with the headline "900-pound moose roams into New Mexico city. See how many officers it took to lift it."
