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At about 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17, state police from the Cortlandt barracks received a report of an injured moose on the grass shoulder of Route 9 southbound about one mile south of the Welcher Avenue Exit in the Town of Cortlandt.
"Sadly, the moose was dispatched due to its injuries," state police said.
With the assistance of the state Department of Transportation, the moose was removed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for testing, according to state police.
Police have not located the vehicle that struck the moose, Trooper Melissa McMorris, spokeswoman for Troop K of the state police, said on Monday. McMorris said no one has come forward with a description of the vehicle.
"We would have no way of confirming if the moose was the same moose from previous sightings," McMorris said.
A young male moose sighted throughout Northern Westchester since June was about 7-feet tall and weighed more than 800 pounds.
A young male moose was previously spotted near woods along the eastbound lanes of Bear Mountain Parkway in Cortlandt on Sunday, July 10. Earlier moose sightings were reported in Bedford, Millwood and Ossining.
The moose in all the recent sightings had small antlers, typical of a young bull moose.
Moose sightings are extremely rare in southern New York. There are an estimated 800 moose in the entire state, with most living near the Canadian and Vermont borders.
Moose are solitary animals and do not form herds, adding to the likelihood the moose struck by the vehicle was the same moose reported in other summer sightings along the Bear Mountain Parkway.
These were the first moose sightings in Northern Westchester since September 2008 when a half-ton moose died after being hit by nine vehicles while wandering onto Interstate 684 near Exit 6-A in Goldens Bridge in the early evening.
For more on the Ossining sighting, click here.
For Daily Voice's report on the Bedford moose sightings, click here.
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