Moving Moose

Imagine you’re standing on the ground in the Utah mountains enjoying the scenery. Suddenly you hear the whoop-whoop-whoop sound that can only come from a helicopter. (You know this because you’ve watched all those M*A*S*H episodes in rerun—or if you’re older when they first aired.) You look up and see a helicopter moving toward you just above the trees and dangling below the chopper’s belly is a ….moose?

(Moose Moved To Colorado's Grand Mesa From Utah)

Utah’s Division of Wildlife recently rounded up and transported twenty moose from their forests to Colorado. They didn’t fly all the way, just out of the mountains to a command post where they could be examined and then placed upon trucks to haul them across the state line. They were greeted by members of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, who, in turn, will ship bighorn sheep in the opposite direction.

"I'm sure it's really stressful hanging from under a helicopter, but they're handling it really well," Dr. Lisa Wolfe with the Colorado Division of Wildlife said.

Past moose moves haven't always turned out so well. The mission can be risky. Last year, biologists in western Colorado tried the same sort of relocation operation.

Crews dropped nets on 6 moose. Each as caught around the legs and quickly subdued. Three of the 6 made it back out safely to the wilderness. The other 3 died.

"Whenever you're dealing with helicopters and this kind of capture, it's dangerous," Dolling said.

Well, yeah! I wouldn’t want to get netted and hauled up by a cable attached to the base of a honking huge flying critter big enough to lift me up either. Can’t imagine what’s going through the moose’s mind. One minute your basically the biggest thing in the woods and the next your being taken for a ride.

The program seems to be boosting the moose population in Colorado, however.

The Colorado Division of Wildlife started the moose transplant program in 1978. The state now has almost 1,000 moose. That's up from a few strays when the program began.