TAOS — It started with a Facebook post with a photo of a moose trotting down Bobcat Pass in Red River. “The creatures around us continue to astound,” Red River resident Tracy Park wrote in early August. “I passed this beauty about 2 miles from home today.
The moose have evidently been moving south, but with limited sightings. We have named her Betty Moose.” A few days later Lindsey Dickens Roessler, who was staying at Road Runner RV Resort in Red River, snapped a photo of “Betty,” whom she called a “young male,” noting, “At our campground we saw this little guy (which isn’t so little) and it was a first for everyone!” This is not the first moose sighting in New Mexico — “Marty the Moose” rose to prominence and even garnered his own Facebook page when he wandered all the way down to Santa Fe — twice.
On Nov. 2, 2023, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish posted on “Marty the moose New Mexico” — the Facebook page for “Sightings of Marty and his fan club in New Mexico” — that it had been a year since Marty had been seen in the state. The post, which noted, “There have been almost a dozen confirmed sightings of different moose in New Mexico over the past 10 years,” warned residents not to “harass or feed” the moose or any wildlife "for your safety and the animal’s.
” The late Tom Farley, while serving on the State Wildlife Board, successfully pushed for the reintroduction of moose in Colorado in the 1970s. Since that time, said Darren Vaughan, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, confirmed in-state moose sightings are “getting less and less rare.” According to Game and Fish’s Facebook post, “Most sightings in New Mexico are younger males emigrating from Colorado in search of new habitat and breeding opportunities.
Females have been observed in New Mexico as well, but there are presently no known breeding populations of moose in the state.” Based on media reports, the first recorded moose sighting in New Mexico was in 1995 when one was found near Taos. “I don’t think the presence of moose [in New Mexico] trying to establish a population in this state would be a good idea,” Jennifer Frey, a professor in the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Ecology at New Mexico State University, noted in a 2019 New Mexico Wildlife magazine story.
“We already have a problem with our riparian and wetland systems being degraded. There is effort to try to restore riparian vegetation in our streams. Having such a species here would be counter-productive at this point,” she said.
The state has no hunting regulations for moose, but they are protected under state statutes. Harassing them or killing them is unlawful. To report a possible moose sighting, call 800-432-4263.
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