Mother moose attacks Edmonton senior, baby moose dies after vehicle strike

Calgary Herald

29-05-2025

Trail closures where east Edmonton meets the North Saskatchewan River tell a tale of danger and heartbreak this week after an Edmonton senior was rammed by a protective mother moose foraging through yards with her baby — and lived to tell about it.
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At 5:25 p.m. last Saturday, emergency medical services was called to an incident near Rowland Road and 106A Avenue in Edmonton.
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According to media reports, a senior resident was knocked out by a female moose, sustaining non-life-threatening injuries, including three broken ribs, a gash in his leg and a bump on the head.
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The mother-baby pair made their getaway, and intermittent moose sightings were subsequently reported in southeast Edmonton in and around Fulton Ravine Park and Wayne Gretzky Drive.
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On Sunday morning, another man, Robert Boyko, was working in his yard when he heard a loud crack from the brush, like something big walking through branches unheeding, and he figured it was a moose. His daughter had seen one the day before.
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He's very accustomed to wildlife wandering through the yards perched high above the river. A deer or two, the occasional jackrabbit, a bumbling porcupine looking for fresh foliage almost nightly, tottering along the edge of the bank. Sometimes they get at Boyko's garden, sometimes the chicken wire keeps them out.
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'Just Saskatoons'
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He didn't begrudge the mother-baby pair for stripping the leaves and unripe berries off his full Saskatoon bushes.
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There's still maybe 40 per cent of the berry bushes left, and the bushes are half-full, as far as Boyko's concerned.
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'They're just Saskatoons. It doesn't matter,' he said.
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He's more protective of his fruit trees — including a large, robust plum — which appear to be blooming among deterrent bars of Irish Spring soap dangling from branches, since the moose don't care for strong smells, Boyko said.
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When he saw the adult female ungulate, he crossed his yard to get out of its way. Live and let live, that sort of thing.
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'Then I saw the calf. And of course, the moose is very protective right away, like just my presence here was enough to just get her uneasy, because I moved from there to here, so she probably thought I was stalking her or something, and then she came through the bush there. It was a bit of a bluff charge, I guess,' he recalled.