Seeing a moose in the Park City area is often exciting and sometimes very surprising. Especially when they are spotted in neighborhoods eating potted plants or front porch pumpkins rather than foraging in the densely forested mountain trails.
Cassie Brown and Sarah Pool are friends and neighbors who live in Silver Springs, a neighborhood just east of state Route 224. Last week, Brown and her daughter were driving in the neighborhood and saw a large female moose and her calf walking onto the East Meadows trailhead.
Brown slowed down to see the moose when she noticed Pool in her rearview mirror running with her dog, heading straight for the trailhead.
“And she had her headphones on, I could tell she wasn't really necessarily paying attention that there possibly was a moose there because it had been a while since the moose had been in our neighborhood,” Brown said. “So, I got out of my car and just stopped her. And I said, ‘Sara there’s a moose right there.’ And as I did that, mama moose started moving towards us.”
Pool said she heard Cassie yell “moose,” but it didn’t immediately register. She said it mostly because she made the conscious decision to run in the neighborhood that day rather than the higher trails because, ironically, she didn’t want to run into a moose.
“It all happened so fast. I see the moose, and I'm running around the other side of her car,” Pool said. “And as I'm running around the other side of her car, I see it do a 180 in a way like it's coming out from behind the fence which is exactly what it was doing. And not at a slow pace.”
Pool explained she had been charged by moose two other times, so she knew what to do and found a tree to hide behind with her dog.
Brown agreed that everything moved very quickly, including the moose towards her car.
“She went so fast. And then when I started walking back to my car, running back to my car, she went around the fence and she was coming right at us.”
Pool, who was now behind the tree, saw the moose head straight for Brown’s car whose window was down.
“I thought its head was in her car. I mean, I could not figure out what was happening.”
Brown said her only thought was to get out of the way.
“And she came around and her head seemed as if it was almost about to swoop into my car,” Brown said. “So I quickly was rolling up my window, she turns to face her baby. And as she did that, she was, I mean, maybe a foot away from me. And her hind was towards my driver's side door. And I tried to slowly leave the scene so as not to disturb her anymore. And she kicked my car and left a huge hoof print in my driver's side door.”
Brown said her car shook from the moose kick and she and her daughter were shaken by the whole experience. She sees it as a valuable lesson.
“To be fair, over the past few years, living here I have become more fascinated in all of these beautiful creatures, and I love to see them from afar as often as I can,” she said. “But it reminded me I think I might have gotten too comfortable with getting perhaps too close. I don't fault her in any way.”
Faith Jolley, a spokesperson for the Department of Wildlife Resources, said, “Moose can act aggressively anytime they feel cornered or threatened, but cows can be especially defensive when they are with their calves. Also, moose view dogs as natural predators and feel threatened when they get too close which can make them aggressive toward the dog or any people nearby. This can lead them to charge, knock someone over and stomp them.”
Pool said if it weren’t for Brown, she would have literally run into the moose and knows that wouldn’t have ended well.
Brown said, thankfully, her car insurance is going to cover the moose damage, which is in the thousands. The agent said, “this was the first time he’s ever heard of a story like this,” and will file it under “animal strike.”
