UGH, People! Moose Drowns After Being Swarmed By Crowd Taking Photos

A moose drowned in Lake Champlain after people crowded around him to take a picture!

This poor moose was minding its business, swimming across the lake from New York to South Hero in Vermont, but when he reached land, excited onlookers were waiting to snap pictures. Moose, despite their size, can be timid animals, who, although are thought to be aggressive, when they are threatened, they’re far more likely to retreat from an area. In the case of this moose, he was exhausted from his long swim but too scared to be on land with people, and so he went back into the water, where he succumbed to that exhaustion and drowned.

Fish and Wildlife Warden Robert Currier said, “It was struggling pretty good at that point. We were waiting for a boat to respond to try to assist it, but before the boat arrived, it had drowned. It was really rough out there, probably four to five-foot swells and high wind.”

Bernadette Toth was in the area with her daughter and reports that she saw the moose swim to shore but left before it re-entered the water. Toth said, “They made it sound like it was this big mob of people. No, this is a heavy trafficked area for South Hero. That is always a very busy, busy area.”

We know. Moose are beautiful animals, majestic and graceful, and not too many of us get to see them up close. And we are sure that no one intentionally meant to cause this poor animal any harm. But to crowd around a clearly tired and then frightened animal for the sake of a picture is both irresponsible and thoughtless, and above all else, cruel.

Wild animals like moose are not here for our entertainment or for us to capture some great Labor Day Weekend snaps. Would we as willingly do this to a frightened human being, or does it not matter because this moose’s life was worth less than ours?

Fish and Wildlife Warden Robert Currier has some pretty simple advice on what to do when we see moose in the wild. Currier said, “I would advise the public to keep their distance from the animal, give it a lot of space and notify the Department of Fish and Wildlife.”

It is a pity that more of us don’t actually have this common sense…

Image Source: Aleesha Wood/Unsplash