Moose roaming Massachusetts city tranquilized, relocated

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — A moose on the loose in a Massachusetts city was tranquilized Tuesday and moved to a more appropriate setting, state wildlife officials said.

The moose spotted roaming around a densely-populated Marlborough neighborhood was tranquilized by the Massachusetts Environmental Police at about 10 a.m., tagged, and taken to a wildlife management area in northern Worcester County, Martin Feehan, a deer-moose biologist for the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, told The Metro West Daily News.

It took two tranquilizer darts to get the 6-year-old female to sleep, he said.

“Everything went very smoothly,” said Feehan. “We deal with about four or five of these a year. She’s a pretty healthy moose.”

The roughly 600-pound (270-kilogram) moose was likely looking for food, according to a statement from the wildlife agency. Suburban areas are planted with an abundance of soft ornamental shrubs and trees that are rich in calories, needed by breeding cows.

Moose had largely disappeared from Massachusetts by the early 1700s because of unregulated hunting and forest clearing, but began reappearing in greater numbers in the 1980s, according to the agency.

The state’s current moose population is about 900 to 1,000 animals, the agency said.

Most moose sightings occur in the more rural central and western areas of the state, but the animals are occasionally spotted in more built up eastern areas. Marlborough, with nearly 42,000 residents, is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Boston.

Lindsay Alers took some video of the moose in her backyard.

“I had seen on Facebook the day before that someone saw a moose at Ghiloni Park, so I had moose on my mind; otherwise, I would have thought I lost my mind when I pulled up to my house and saw it,” Alers told the newspaper.