Baby Moose Takes a Rest in Hotel Lobby
The moose walked through the hotel's front doors.
June 12, 2014— -- A baby moose that was either very confused, scared or just looking for a little respite from the wild in the lap of luxury found its way into the lobby of a Vail, Colorado, hotel Monday.
Video captured by hotel guests showed the young moose walking through the front doors of the Lionshead Hotel at Antlers at Vail.
After taking a spin around the lobby and not being able to find its way out, the moose plopped down in the middle of the lobby and stayed for a spell.
“He nestled right in the middle of the floor in the lobby and stayed for probably 10 to 20 minutes,” the hotel’s general manager, Rob LeVine, told ABC News.
Only one hotel guest and one hotel employee were in the lobby at the time the moose entered through the lobby’s front doors, kept open to enjoy the Vail weather.
“They closed the doors so people wouldn’t come in and out and kept it safe,” LeVine said, adding that the hotel employee also called wildlife officials and police.
When officers from the Vail Police Department arrived, according to LeVine, they determined that the moose should be let free and opened the doors for the moose to get out.
LeVine says hotel officials do not know what happened to the moose after it left through the lobby’s front doors.
“We don’t know where it went,” he said. “We don’t know what happened beyond it left the hotel safely.”
Officials from the Colorado Parks and Wildlife department responded to the scene outside the hotel, tranquilizing the animal and taking it to a rehabilitation facility in nearby Fort Collins, a department spokesman told ABC News. The goal is to eventually return the animal to its natural habitat.
The spokesman also urged the public not to interact with wild animals, no matter how cute they may appear.
LeVine says the 90-condominium hotel, home to “several hundred guests” at the time of the moose encounter, has had incidents of bear tracks outside, a trapped weasel and even a fox by the swimming pool, but never a moose, or any animal, on the loose in the lobby.
“Nothing like this,” he said. “We’re going to continue to keep the doors open and will be willing to bet that this won’t happen again anytime soon.”
