Moose euthanized in Amherst after clothesline struggle
A moose at the heart of some commotion in Amherst on Monday morning was euthanized after it was shot, shocked with a stun gun and tranquillized.
The Amherst Police Department was called at approximately 5:30 a.m. when someone spotted an injured moose in the vicinity of Allison Avenue.
Ned Douglas, who lives in the area, said he was outside doing some yard work at about 7:30 a.m. when he heard an unusual noise.
"It was a moose running down our street at full clip," Douglas said.
The noise Douglas heard was the pulley of a clothesline that was attached to the moose's leg and dragging behind it.
The police called in the Department of Natural Resources and officers arrived at 7:00 a.m. to monitor the moose until their tranquillizer team arrived at 10:00 a.m.
Kim George, the Department of Natural Resources biologist who went to the scene, said the moose was bleeding heavily from being trapped in the clothesline.
"The clothesline was wrapped around its antlers and its legs and it wasn't able to move," she said Monday.
George said Department of Natural Resources officers, in consultation with a wildlife pathologist from the University of Prince Edward Island, determined the animal's hind leg was broken at the ankle and that the most humane treatment would be to euthanize the moose.
The first attempt to tranquillize the moose was unsuccessful and that caused the animal to charge at the Department of Natural Resources officers, tramping one of them.
"There was a point when the animal was quite agitated but the Amherst police were there to respond," said George.
The police responded by shooting the moose and discharging a stun gun. When that didn't work, an officer fired two more shots and that turned the animal away.
The moose took refuge in a yard nearby where the Department of Natural Resources team used another two tranquillizers successfully.
George said the officer who was trampled wasn't seriously injured but will be seeking medical advice.
The moose will be sent to the University of Prince Edward Island for further analysis and a necropsy to see if it was affected by a moose brain worm.
