750-pound moose tranquilized, relocated after refusing to exit Colorado parking garage
A bull moose was tranquilized and relocated from a ski resort parking garage in Colorado on Tuesday, wildlife officials said.
The 2-to 3-year-old moose, weighing an estimated 750 pounds, had been spotted in Vail wandering through multiple neighborhoods over the past month, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a news release.
Then it got cozy at the Lionshead Village parking garage, an upscale ski village in Vail, which is two hours west of Denver and has the largest ski resort in the state.
The bull began frequently visiting the ground level of the garage where he would lick the walls, the news release said.
Park officials said they believed it was due to de-icing agents used in the structure so they worked to remove the salt material to eliminate the attraction.
But the young bull kept returning to the area for 10 days.
“He was pretty regularly coming into the parking structure first thing in the morning and then would kind of clear out before it got too busy,” Wildlife Officer Devin Duval said. “This is the primary parking place for the folks accessing Lionshead Village as well as the Vail Health hospital.”
To keep the community and the animal safe, wildlife officials said the moose had to be removed. It wasn’t aggressive toward people, only dogs, the department said.
The moose was tranquilized around 8:25 a.m. and then moved to near Craig, a small town about 118 miles northwest of Vail known for hunting, camping and fishing.
“Coincidentally, it is kind of a serendipitous scenario in that our wildlife officials there were looking for some help with some translocation, so those folks are going to take this moose and find some more appropriate habitat for him,” Duval said.
This story was originally published July 27, 2021 at 8:06 PM with the headline "750-pound moose tranquilized, relocated after refusing to exit Colorado parking garage."
