Adirondack Trail Shut Down for Months by Sick Bull Moose

iSportsman Staff

It sounds like the setup to a bad hunting camp joke: a bull moose wanders onto a hiking trail in the Adirondacks, decides he likes the view and refuses to leave — and the state shuts the trail down for most of the summer. But that’s exactly what happened on Goodman Mountain near Tupper Lake, N.Y.

First spotted in May, the roughly 6-foot-tall bull parked himself near the summit and stayed put. Hikers kept running into him, and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) closed the trail June 6 “for public safety.” Moose are big and unpredictable and have been known to stomp humans into little broken parts. Efforts to haze him off the trail went nowhere, and the moose kept acting strangely. So, the trail remained shut…all summer long.

By early August, wildlife biologists and a state vet found the animal severely emaciated and suffering from advanced disease. With no real chance of recovery, they euthanized him on Aug. 6. A necropsy at Cornell University will try to pinpoint the cause — possibilities in the region include brainworm and other parasites that can hammer moose populations.

The Goodman Mountain trail remains closed while DEC studies the site, but with only an estimated 500–700 moose in all of New York, odds are you won’t run into another one blocking your hike anytime soon. Still, it’s a reminder that even a sick, non-hunting-season moose can bring outdoor recreation to a standstill — and that’s something most hunters can’t imagine happening anywhere outside of a bureaucrat’s playbook.