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According to Alberta Fish and Wildlife, two young moose were removed from the community of Arbor Lake in northwest Calgary after one of the moose “kicked a local resident's dog on Monday evening.
“A resident allowed his dogs into his backyard where, unknowingly, there were two elk calves, a male and a female, each approximately 1.5 years old,” a Fish and Wildlife spokesman said in a statement. “One dog was hit by a calf and suffered minor injuries.”
The moose were removed Tuesday with the help of the Calgary Fire Department.
They were “successfully released” near the Harold Creek Wildlife Corridor northwest of Cochrane.
A similar incident involving a mother-calf pair was reported in January. These two elk were removed from the Scenic Acres community in northwest Calgary and also relocated to the Harold Creek Wildlife Corridor.
Fish and Wildlife officials said the relocation occurred after a moose moose attacked a dog walker who was walking between her and the calf.
Moose are relatively common in parts of Calgary.
Sarah Jordan-McLachlan is a wildlife biologist studying human-wildlife conflict in Calgary, says moose are often seen in natural areas such as Fish Creek Provincial Park and Weaselhead Flats, as well as some northwest and southwest suburbs.
“If you're in these forested areas or near wetlands, you're more likely to see them than just downtown,” she said.
Calgary has local moose that live and breed within the city, as well as moose that roam in and out of the city along wildlife corridors in That Tsuutina Nation and in other places in the city, Jordan-McLachlan said.
There have been more than 300 moose sightings in and around Calgary since 2020, according to iNaturalist, a citizen science website where people can track wildlife sightings around the world.
Remote cameras from the Mitakis Institute's Calgary Connect wildlife monitoring program recorded 242 moose in the city between 2017 and 2022, a small portion of the total detections of 31,040 deer species.
“You may not see them, but they may just go off the trail and then come back right after you leave instead of leaving the area completely,” Jordan-McLachlan said.
According to the latest program report, Of all the wildlife species in Calgary, moose have the “most overlap with human activities,” which Jordan-McLachlan said means moose do not go out of their way to avoid areas frequented by humans to the same extent as other animals.
Jordan-McLachlan recommends avoiding contact with moose of any age or gender. This means not approaching moose and keeping dogs on a leash.
If encountered, she “would advise leaving the area, giving this animal as much space as possible, regardless of the time of year.”
Miitakis Institute Wildlife Monitoring Program found that moose activity in the city peaks between 6 and 9 p.m. and is lowest between midnight and 4 a.m.
