Young moose snarl Calgary traffic

A pair of young moose snarled traffic and stirred attention for several hours in a northeast Calgary neighbourhood Sunday afternoon.

The male and female siblings are about 1½ years old and weigh 182 kilograms each, just a third of a typical full-grown adult weight.

However, their mini-moose statures were large enough to cause big problems.

Traffic came to a standstill for about an hour after the moose wandered in from the Chestermere area and into the intersections near 16th Avenue NE and 68th Street NE.

For three hours, police and Fish and Wildlife Ministry officers chased the animals around the neighbourhood and yelled at people to get in — and stay in — their homes.

Two tranquillizer darts later, the moose siblings collapsed on a woman's lawn in Pineridge.

That woman, Amanda Greep, is nine months pregnant and soon expecting a girl whom she plans to name Lucille.

Philip Marasco, a sentimental Fish and Wildlife officer, thought it would be fitting to borrow the name Lucille for the female cow and wrote it on her new ear tag. He chose the name Lucky for the male bull.

"We do on average 10-15 moose a year," Marasco said. "We move them out of Calgary, generally in the Royal Oak area but every now and then we get one coming from the east country, east of Calgary. So it's not that uncommon, especially this time of year.

"Either we've got a cow with a new calf or in this case here two juvenile calves that would have been kicked loose from their mother just this spring because she's probably pregnant again."

The moose were relocated just west of Bragg Creek, about 30 kilometres outside of city limits.

Officials expect to relocate about 15 moose out of Calgary this year.