Wildlife officers rescue orphaned baby moose in Edmonton suburb
Edmonton Two baby moose were rescued east of Sherwood Park last week by Fish and Wildlife officers after their mother was found dead on the side of the road.
Officer Dana Brand said her office received a call from the Report a Poacher line on May 27 about the calves hiding near Wye Road east of the community. Once she arrived on the scene, Brand said she found blood and tufts of hair on the road and ravens flew up from some tall grass nearby.
“So we had a pretty good indication that the cow, the mother of these calves, was deceased ... we later confirmed that was the case; she had been hit by a car a few nights before,” said Brand on Friday
as she was on her way to a call of a moose being stuck in a fence near Anthony Henday Drive.
Once they confirmed the mom had died, Brand and one of the callers carried the two approximately 90-pound calves into the officer’s truck.
“They’re not baby babies. They are definitely big babies and took some wrangling, so it was an interesting experience for me,” said Brand.
She then drove them down the highway to meet with a volunteer from an animal rehabilitation facility outside of Red Deer. The calves will spend up to the next year in non-contact rehab until they are ready to head back into the wild.
“They kind of put them into bigger and bigger pens as they get larger and larger. And eventually they’ll kind of open up the final gates on their facility and let them come in and out as they please and eventually they just don’t ever come back,” said Brand.
Brand said moose will often leave their calves in hiding while they look for food. She said people should leave them be unless they notice the babies remain in the same spot without their mother for multiple days.
If that is the case, she urged Albertans to call Fish and Wildlife and they will respond.
“We advise everyone not to approach them. They’re wild animals and we want to try to keep them wild,” said Brand.