FORT SIMPSON - Two men who found a moose carcass on the bank of the Mackenzie River suspect the animal may have been shot and left to rot.

Bob Norwegian and Wilbert Antoine were returning to Fort Simpson on June 28 from a trip to Rabbitskin when they discovered the carcass. The men were alongside the north shore of the mouth of the Mackenzie River when they turned off the motor

Bob Norwegian examines the carcass of a moose that he discovered on the north shore of the Mackenzie River just outside of Fort Simpson. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

"Something was stinking and we looked and there was a big moose," said Norwegian.

On the bank approximately five feet up from the waterline what had originally looked like a rock turned out to be a moose carcass. The carcass was very bloated, Norwegian said.

The moose was full grown and probably weighed around 1,000 pounds, said Norwegian. Due to deterioration they couldn't tell if it was a bull or a cow.

The location of the carcass prompted them to make a closer examination.

The way the moose was on the shore didn't look natural to Antoine who suspects that it was shot.

Antoine, who's done lots of travelling on rivers and in the bush, said he hasn't seen a moose carcass positioned like this before.

"It's just not natural," he said.

The moose is too far up the bank for it to have been washed in from the river, said Antoine and he doesn't think it died there of natural causes.

"To me a moose wouldn't just go down to the river and die. It looks like it was shot," he said.

The men are concerned about the implications if the moose was shot and abandoned.

Norwegian said this is the first time he's seen an animal abandoned in the territory. Most people go through a lot of trouble to track an animal if it's only injured after being shot.

"I was sort of shocked," he said.

If someone shot it intentionally it wasn't the right thing to do, Norwegian said.

If the animal was shot by accident, the person should have come forward and reported it so that it could have been harvested, Antoine.

"I would sure have fed a lot of people," he said.

Animals are shot and abandoned more often than people realize, said Carl Lafferty, a renewable resources officer.

"Unfortunately it happens a lot but people don't see it," said Lafferty. Both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people alike often take a shot at an animal and, thinking they've missed it, they leave it behind, he said.

"People are just not taking the time they used to," he said.

Lafferty said he'd be looking into this incident but noted that it's unlikely anything definite will be discovered.

"These things are tough to prove," he said.

Short of having a confession, it would be difficult to determine what happened, said Lafferty. If someone is found guilty of having wasted big game fit for consumption they can be given a summary offense ticket for $575. If the case was more malicious it can be taken to court.

Lafferty cautions other boaters to stay away from the area because the carcass could attract wolves and bears.

Nic Larter, the regional biologist, said there are a variety of both natural and unnatural means that could result in a moose dying on a riverbank.

Animals can get stressed out from swimming across a fast flowing river filled with debris or suffer heat stress. There have also been cases where animals like bison and moose fall off a bank, break a leg and are unable to move, Larter said.

After examining a picture of the carcass, Larter said that the animal might have suffered a broken neck and washed downstream.

In order to determine the cause of death, the animal has to be found shortly after death and the carcass has to be examined. Bullet wounds can often be seen by an exterior examination, said Larter.