More moose sightings reported

• Moose

Mark Becker of Alexandria snapped this photo of a moose alongside Highway 27 East near Osakis on September 27. It's the latest of several moose sightings in the area.

Talk about it

Several moose sightings have been reported in and around Douglas County in the last few weeks.

Mark Becker of Alexandria was one of the most recent spotters. He e-mailed the newspapers several photos of the moose, along with this narrative:

“I was taking my family to go leaf viewing on Saturday morning, September 27 (approximately 8:30 a.m.) and was heading out of Alex on Highway 27 toward Osakis.

“I was just past The Crooked Willow between mile markers 88 and 89 when my son, Austin, and I spotted this bad boy on the south side of 27.

“I asked my wife to turn around as I knew we packed a camera. This guy stood there long enough for me to take a few shots. He was approximately 20 to 30 yards off of the highway when I began shooting.

“The most ironic thing about getting these photos is that we were heading to Moose Lake, Minnesota where these things are far less rare and of course we didn’t see any there.”

Back in July, the Echo Press reported a moose sighting near Holmes City. The Osakis Re-view printed photos a resident took in late September of a moose taking a swim in Lake Osakis.

Mike Sheldon, the Douglas County conservation officer, said that seeing a moose in this area is fairly unusual, although not unheard of. He said that there is usually a sighting once every year.

Jason Strege from the De-partment of Natural Resources (DNR) office in Glenwood agrees that it’s not entirely unusual for moose to be here. “They’re usually just passing through,” he said.

Tags: moose, sighting, douglas, county, northland, outdoors, places