OTISFIELD – A sick and injured moose was euthanized in Thompson Lake late Sunday afternoon after swimming around boats, Maine Game Warden Joshua Smith said.

“I received a complaint from Oxford Police Department after they had received a number of calls about a moose in the lake,” Smith said. “It had spent a significant time in the water swimming around.”

Smith said one of the animal’s hind legs appeared to be broken, and it also showed signs of brain worm. At nearly 300 pounds, the small bull was emaciated, had very little fur and its ears were back on its head – all signs of brain worm, the warden said.

Making the situation difficult was the location of the moose, which stood in a few feet of water near a sandy beach area next to The Outpost store on the west shore of the lake.

Store owner Donna DeSalvo said she’d seen the moose around over the last few months and could tell it was injured. She said she got a call from someone out on the lake that a moose was swimming around between boats.

“I was in and out because I was working, but there are a lot of people who don’t live here year-round, it was the first time they’d seen a moose,” DeSalvo said.

During the nearly two-hour incident, people came and went, some taking pictures, witnesses said.

Bill Kennedy, who recently moved to Otisfield from New Jersey, said he received a call from his wife that he needed to get home because there was a moose in the water near The Outpost next door. From his deck he said he could see the gathering crowd, and watched the wardens tow the moose to the nearby public boat landing after it had been shot.

A crowd of people gathered, and boats continued to congregate nearby, Smith said. Each time a group was asked to disperse, a new group would take its place, making the situation dangerous, he said.

Smith said that after the animal was shot, he and off-duty warden Tony Gray towed it to the boat landing, removed it from the water and took it away for disposal.