Monday night Lisa Anderson was on the Tour de Homes path at Deer Valley along with her canine when she turned a nook and located herself in a harmful state of affairs.
“When you’re hiking, you know, you’re looking at the ground,” she stated. “All I can tell you is, one second I’m looking at the ground and the next second I see this big face of a moose coming at me.”
Anderson’s canine, an 11-year-old, three-legged Labrador named Abednego, barked in warning.
“She shifted her focus from me to the dog, and so she went after my dog and got him,” Anderson stated. “She got him on the head with her hoof. He’s got a little cut — he’s OK, and he kind of got roughed up around the dirt. I just, you know, went over, and I grabbed my dog from out from under her and pulled him up the hill behind us and got him out of there.”
She can see the spot the place it occurred from her yard and stated she has seen the identical moose and calf a number of occasions there because it charged her.
She stated she’s undecided if the moose meant to assault or simply scare her since its calf was there.
Anderson stated she now avoids that stretch of the Tour de Homes path, at the least throughout mornings and evenings when she has seen the moose and calf for the reason that encounter. She stated she hopes her story will assist educate others, particularly guests, to not strategy or work together with giant, typically aggressive animals.
Moose encounters occur in locations like Park City. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources spokesperson Faith Heaton Jolley shared the way to be ready.
“We do see a lot of moose in Park City don’t migrate down, even right into town a lot of times into people’s yards,” she stated. “Like with most wildlife, just give them their space. Don’t try to approach them, don’t try to feed them. You know, leave them alone, let them be wild, give them that wide berth. If you encounter a moose that just comes around the corner, it’s right there in front of you, stay calm, you know, don’t run away. Talk, make your presence known, and then we recommend slowly backing away in the direction that you came from.”
She stated this time of yr, when their calves are solely months outdated, moose are identified to be extra aggressive, particularly towards dogs.
Jolley stated if a moose assaults, fast motion is vital.
“Run and hide behind something solid,” she stated. “So, if you’re hiking, potentially find a big tree that can kind of hide behind that it’s not going to be able to charge through. If you’re in a neighborhood, try to get inside a building or a vehicle or behind one or something like that just to kind of give that physical barrier between you and the moose. If it does potentially happen to knock you down, we recommend curling into a ball and then basically doing what you can to protect your head and lying still, until the moose retreats.”
She stated moose are protected hoofed wildlife below Utah legislation. That means it’s unlawful to permit a canine to chase them.
Sometimes when moose get too far out of the woods, DWR officers are pressured to relocate them away from people and automobiles.
That occurred Monday morning in Parleys Canyon close to the Jeremy Ranch exit. A moose was close to Interstate 80, solely separated from it by a wildlife fence. Officers tranquilized the animal and launched it in central Utah Monday afternoon.
