Wild-moose chase: Surprise visitor becomes talk of the town in Camden

CAMDEN – A young male moose wandered through downtown Camden on Wednesday evening, following the Megunticook River, even where it flows under Main Street.

David Dickey, owner of the Riverhouse Hotel, said he heard noise outside his building about 6 p.m. that he assumed was “the neighborhood raccoon,” he said Thursday.

When he began investigating the area where the river flows between concrete walls and under buildings along Mechanic Street, he was surprised when the moose jumped off a 5-foot wall toward him.

The animal, which had antlers that Dickey estimated at 6 to 8 inches long, then went over the wall into the stream area, going upstream under the building that houses the Bagel Cafe.

“How he made it, I don’t know,” Dickey said, because the animal would have had to negotiate cribwork and a waterfall. The moose later was spied near the Tavern on the Falls restaurant in the former Knox Mill complex.

Officers with the Maine Warden Service were summoned, and they were ready to tranquilize the moose if it appeared unable to leave the river, but by morning, it apparently had followed the river under Main Street, down a water flow and into the harbor. The moose left tracks through Harbor Park and apparently out of town.

Lt. Randy Gagne of the Camden Police Department said he believed the moose was about a year old.