A 65-year-old woman from Palmer somehow managed to call for help after a mother moose attacked her Tuesday near her home. Alaska State Troopers got word around 12:30 Tuesday that Caren Della Cioppa needed help. They found her behind her home on N. Heidi Rd., which is in a wooded area with many trails, according to Megan Peters, AST's public information officer.
But the mother moose, who had twins with her, apparently wasn't finished.
The moose charged at the group as troopers tended to Della Cioppa, forcing troopers to shoot and kill the moose, according to Peters.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game was called in to deal with the orphaned calves.
Troopers would not say how badly the moose hurt Della Cioppa, only that Della Cioppa had been taken to a local hospital.
The moose calves are only days old, young enough that they are still wobbly on their legs and not moving around too well on their own yet, which likely contributed to the mother's heightened aggressiveness, according to Lem Butler, a wildlife biologist with fish and game who was called to the scene.
"She was just doing what normal moose cows do when they are protecting their young," he said. "There was nothing abnormal about her behavior."
The mother appears to have given birth on a wooded hillside about 100 feet from a house, he said, adding it's possible neighbors may not have known she was there. Female moose will often move to a new location just before giving birth, sometimes up to several miles, he said.
The calves will spend the summer in the care of the Alaska Moose Federation, a private citizen's group approved by Fish and Game to care for moose calves until they are old enough to be released into the wild.
The twins picked up today will likely be on their own by Fall, Butler said.
Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com