{"id":561237,"date":"2026-04-03T01:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/561237\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T01:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:16:11","slug":"oh-no-evanston-residents-worried-about-big-betty-their-friendly-neighborhood-moose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/561237\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh No! Evanston Residents Worried About Big Betty, Their Friendly Neighborhood Moose"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happened to Big Betty? Evanston residents are concerned that\u00a0their resident neighborhood moose<\/a>\u00a0looks a little worse for wear this spring.<\/p>\n

Big Betty is a moose that\u2019s known to many people living in this southwest Wyoming city. They frequently find her resting in their yards, occasionally with a calf alongside her.<\/p>\n

When Shasta Sharp noticed Big Betty in her backyard on Wednesday morning, she was alarmed by the moose\u2019s appearance. A large patch of hair was missing on her right side, exposing raw, pink skin\u00a0that looks like an injury of some kind.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been visiting us for three years,\u201d Sharp said. \u201cAs I watched her from my home office (on Wednesday), she was struggling to lie down. She looked like she was in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big Betty hung around Sharp\u2019s yard until 4 p.m., when she wandered off to the comfort and security of someone else\u2019s yard.<\/p>\n

When Sharp shared images of Big Betty in her current state, many Evanston residents were alarmed. Some\u00a0called\u00a0seeing her in that condition \u201cheartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is our friendly neighborhood moose,\u201d Sharp said. \u201cWe all love her very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BigBig Betty, Evanston’s neighborhood moose, as she appeared on April 1. The large parch of exposed skin on her side might look alarming, but Wyoming Game and Fish personnel didn’t see anything to indicate the moose was ill, injured, or dying. (Courtesy Shasta Sharp)House Call<\/p>\n

Concerned about Big Betty’s condition, Sharp called the Evanston office of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. One of their field personnel arrived at Sharp\u2019s home to give the moose a once-over from a safe distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got as close as comfort allowed and watched her for a while,\u201d she said. \u201cWe could tell that her legs weren\u2019t broken, so there wasn\u2019t a concern that she had been hit by a car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond that, there wasn\u2019t anything they could do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sharp was told to keep an eye on Big Betty and to call the Evanston office again if her condition worsened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told it\u2019s painful to watch, but for now, they\u2019re going to leave her alone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Moose M.D.<\/p>\n

James Hobbs, Wyoming Game and Fish\u2019s regional wildlife supervisor for the Green River region, confirmed that someone from his office went out to assess the health of a moose in Evanston.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Based on the field report, he thinks the moose looks worse than she feels.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what was described to me, the moose appeared to be in good condition,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was still feeding and moving around just fine with no apparent broken limbs or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hobbs didn\u2019t have an explanation for the moose\u2019s missing hair. At this time of year, it could be for any number of reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the possibility that she was clipped by a car, but that\u2019s something that could have been caused by rubbing,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the temperature starts to warm up, they’re rubbing on all sorts of things, whether it’s vegetation or buildings or whatever it might be, and they sometimes rub hair off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hobbs also noted that Wednesday was a wet, cold day in Evanston. That probably made the swatch of exposed pink skin look worse than it was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the hair is wet, it makes that hair darker,\u201d he said. \u201cThat makes the pink of the skin pop out more, especially with a moose that\u2019s in the local city limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

After seeing Sharp\u2019s photos and hearing the assessment of his peers, Hobbs said there \u201cwasn\u2019t a concern\u201d about Big Betty\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust like humans, animals run into all sorts of different afflictions,\u201d he said. \u201cThat moose didn’t look like it was sick or severely injured. It was hard to tell if that even was an injury, because (the skin) was more pronounced because it was raining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BigBig Betty, Evanston’s neighborhood moose, as she appeared on April 1. The large parch of exposed skin on her side might look alarming, but Wyoming Game and Fish personnel didn’t see anything to indicate the moose was ill, injured, or dying. (Courtesy Shasta Sharp)Moose Maladies<\/p>\n

A fully-grown moose has few natural predators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adults can even survive vehicle impacts, although\u00a0attempting to ride one<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0crime.<\/p>\n

One fatal problem for moose is\u00a0tick infestations<\/a>. There have been documented cases in the eastern U.S. of moose found with 50,000 to 100,000 ticks on their bodies.<\/p>\n

Wyoming\u2019s moose aren\u2019t immune to tick infestations. In fact, they seem particularly susceptible to them, which can lead to blood loss, weight loss, and overall health problems.<\/p>\n

Ticks can easily be a death sentence, directly or indirectly, for any moose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is Big Betty enduring death by 10,000 bites?<\/p>\n

Hobbs admitted that it\u2019s possible Big Betty lost her hair while trying to rub off ticks, but there was nothing to indicate she was battling an infestation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur field guy got really close with binoculars, and he couldn’t see any ticks apparent at that time,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have heavy tick load, they\u2019re really apparent, but he couldn\u2019t see any evidence of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Hobbs has a positive prognosis for Big Betty. She might not look her best at the moment, but she didn’t seem to be outwardly ill or injured.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they look like and are moving and feeding just fine, we allow them to keep doing what they like to do, which is surviving,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t think there was anything to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the reassurances, Sharp and many others will still be keeping an eye out for their resident moose, knowing there is little they can do if Big Betty takes a turn for the worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s an old lady,\u201d Sharp said. \u201cHopefully, that patch clears up, and her body starts healing soon. But she\u2019s going to have to heal herself, because they don’t have antibiotics for moose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What happened to Big Betty? Evanston residents are concerned that\u00a0their resident neighborhood moose\u00a0looks a little worse for wear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-561237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}