Saskatoon woman in disbelief after back-to-back backyard moose encounters

Arden Caleo said her husband thought she was a "quack job" when she called to tell him there was a moose eating cherry blossoms in her back yard in Saskatoon Friday morning. 

"I phoned my husband from work ... he's like, 'OK honey it's Friday, we all want to have a day off,'" she said at her home in the Hudson Bay Park neighbourhood. 

"And I'm like no, there's literally a moose in my yard."  

It wasn't until he saw the footprints at her house that he believed her. But when he left the house to run an errand, a smaller moose arrived and made her story even harder to believe. 

This time Caleo called the police. She said they took some convincing as well. Officers were already responding to reports of another moose. 

Caleo said she saw the first moose in her yard before 7 a.m. after a woman knocked on her door to tell her it was there. 

"Imagine how I feel after nightshift though, someone's at your door and they're like 'There's a moose in your yard,'" she said.

"This takes me back to flashbacks of when I lived in Alaska and I'm like 'Yeah OK it's moose like whatever.'

"But you live in Saskatoon and you're left thinking like, 'Wake up.'"

Moose's tour of town ends in back alley nap

One of the moose was seen running through puddles and taunting dogs at Pierre Radisson Park Friday morning.

Shortly before 9 a.m. the animal was north of 29th Street West, where Saskatoon police and officers from the Ministry of Environment were trying to capture it.

The large mammal was also lounging in an alleyway before running through puddles at the park. At one point the moose jumped into a dog park, much to the excitement of the canines looking on.

The animal passed through the Mayfair, Hudson Bay Park and Westmount neighbourhoods before it was shot with a single tranquilizer dart on the 1700 block of Avenue H N. at about 10 a.m., according to police.

It fell asleep in an alley before being loaded onto the back of a flat-bed trailer. Police said the moose will be released south of the city after the effects of the tranquilizer dart have worn off.

Caleo said the moose left a trail of destruction in her back yard. 

"It ate my fruit trees, my cherry tree, my fruit bushes — gone, levelled, totally destroyed," said Caleo. 

When she called her insurance company about her fruit trees, which she said were insured, they told her they don't cover damages for moose. 

Police had not found the second moose by late Friday afternoon. Caleo said she hopes the two animals will be reunited.