Two moose recently died in separate incidents.
One moose drowned in Lake Champlain and died after he was overwhelmed by onlookers, according to Vermont wildlife officials.
A male adult moose swam from New York to South Hero, Vermont, where it saw a group of onlookers and went back into the water last Saturday at around 11 a.m.
“[The moose] had swum ashore and a bunch of onlookers came down to take pictures of it and they got too close to it and it went back out into the water,” Major George Scribner of Vermont Fish and Wildlife told ABC News.
“People continued to stay on shore, [the moose] would not come back to shore,” Scribner said. “The waves were very rough and [the moose] eventually became too tired and drowned.”
The moose was about 750 to 800 pounds, and he drowned after swimming 20 to 30 minutes in the water. The officers at the scene used monoculars to see the moose as it was about 200 yards away from the shore, according to Scribner. The officers tried to save the animal but to no avail.
“Another police officer with a boat came up — they went out to try to see if they could help the moose,” Scribner said. “By the time they were able to get out there, the moose had drowned.”
In a separate incident, another moose died on Tuesday night in New Hampshire after two vehicles struck the “very large moose,” on a portion of Route 28 in Barnstead, police told ABC News.
The 1,400-pound moose died at the scene instantly after being struck at 9 p.m.
“The moose has succumbed to its injuries,” the Barnstead Police Department wrote on its Facebook page.
“One vehicle was headed north. [The moose] ran out of the woods,” Paul Poirier, chief of the Barnstead Police Department, told ABC News. “It was struck by the first vehicle. And then the second vehicle that was headed southbound struck it while it was in the roadway. And that vehicle flipped over.”
The moose “came out of the woods somewhere,” Poirier said.
The operator of the vehicle that flipped over suffered minor injuries, according to Poirier.
“He had some lacerations to his head and some cuts to his arm,” Poirier said. “They were both checked out at the scene, both drivers, and they were medically cleared.”
