2-year-old cow moose picks area man’s yard to lie down and die. (Via D R Shoop)

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/776792-196/2-year-old-cow-moose-picks-area-mans-yard.html

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MERRIMACK – When he wakes up every morning, Rob Munroe glances out the front window to see what’s going on in his Shady Lane neighborhood. Imagine the unpleasant surprise that greeted him Wednesday when a 300-pound moose lay down in his front yard to die.

It’s not clear what killed the moose, estimated to be about 2 years old. The cow appeared to be in good physical condition, was not bleeding and had no outward signs of problems, according to N.H. Fish and Game. Because no pattern of moose dying in that way has developed in the community, the department did not conduct an investigation into the cause of death, said Mark Ellingwood, a wildlife biologist with Fish and Game.

“One moose does not make a trend,” Ellingwood said. “Unless we see some pattern of moose dying, we wouldn’t be inclined to look further.” He added, “There’s lot of things that can happen to animals that we simply can’t quantify.” Ellingwood said he’s confident that the moose didn’t suffer from chronic wasting disease, a contagious, neurological condition that affects deer, elk and moose. Known as the deer version of “mad cow disease,” CWD has been spreading across the country and is as close as New York state, raising concern among wildlife officials.

“If we suspected that was the case, we’d look further into it,” Ellingwood said, adding that New Hampshire monitors CWD by sampling about 400 deer each year. The many possible causes of the moose’s death include simple malnutrition; being hit by a vehicle and suffering from internal injuries; or diseases and malnutrition cause by ticks. Another possibility is brain worm, a microscopic parasite that can causes neurological problems.
It’s not uncommon for moose to die of brain worm, Ellingwood said, especially in southern New Hampshire.
“It happens a number of times a year,” Ellingwood said.

Ellingwood said it is unusual for a moose to die in areas as urban as central Merrimack. Shady Lane is just off Baboosic Lake Road, a main thoroughfare in Merrimack. Munroe, 51, lives in a split-level house at 1 Shady Lane. In his 20 years there, he said he has seen one other moose: a bull, which tramped through his property en route to Bedford and was eventually shot by police because it was deemed rabid.

Other than some cardinals, squirrels, and a flock of turkeys that showed up one Thanksgiving, Munroe hasn’t seen much wildlife. But on Wednesday, about 8:45 a.m., he spotted the moose. She was about 15 feet from his front door, sitting somewhat on hind legs, seemingly trying to get up, Munroe said. “I said, ‘Oh my god! There’s a moose!’ ” Munroe recalled. “There were two other people here, so I told them … Nobody believed me.”
Munroe called the police and decided to stay inside.

“I didn’t want to get into no altercation with it,” he said.

From the window, Munroe saw that officers arrived as the cow lay down on her side, stretching her legs. She died within a few minutes. Police reported that Fish and Game would arrive within a couple of hours. When they did, Munroe said he helped them gently drag the moose over to the driveway. The department then scooped the body up with a loader and placed it in the bed of a pickup truck. As is customary, Ellingwood said, Fish and Game delivered the carcass to “appropriate rural circumstances, where natural decay and wildlife can consume it without offending anyone.