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SALT LAKE CITY — It’s been quite the week for large animals roaming where they shouldn’t be in Utah and that continued Friday at two college campuses in the state.
At about 8 a.m., a bull moose was spotted near the Chapel Glen area of the University of Utah campus, where many dorms are.
The Utah Department of Wildlife was called out to the scene and caught up with it near the Veterans Affairs building not too far away, where they were able to tranquilize the moose and capture him, according to Mike Roach of the DWR.
“There’s obviously a lot of people, cars and stuff around here,” Roach said. “It got spooked and then it just kept getting more spooked and kept running, running, running.”
Roach said the moose was relocated to Spanish Fork Canyon and that there were no injuries and little damage done in the area.
The moose is the second spotted around Salt Lake City since the start of June. Last Friday a moose was captured running around the Utah Capitol and was also relocated to Utah County.
Later Friday and a couple hundred miles south in Cedar City, a pair of cows were spotted around the administration building on the campus of Southern Utah University.
The cows were sold at an auction and were being picked up at a location less than a mile from campus, according to SUU spokeswoman Ellen Treanor.
"I guess they somehow disembarked from their container and followed the container with the other cows down the street," Treanor said. "As it went by our campus, they got spooked and ran onto our campus."
Cow sightings on campus. Where is the rodeo team when you need them? At nationals this weekend 🐄🐄🐄 #TBirdNationpic.twitter.com/mdrMBisgpk
— SUU (@SUUtbirds) June 10, 2016
Treanor said it took more than a dozen people, from officers to wranglers, to gather the cows and return them to the truck they broke free from, which happened without much drama.
"They are safely back onto their transport vehicle and headed on to their future home," Treanor said.
Earlier this week, an Amur leopard named Zeya escaped her enclosure at Hogle Zoo leading to a brief lockdown of the facility. Nobody was injured in that incident either.
