MOOSE MELT: Rexburg locals discover a dead moose in backyard

REXBURG — Typically once temperatures increase and a thaw begins people look forward to seeing their grass again. One Rexburg couple, however, had an extra surprise when the snow in their backyard began to melt — a dead moose.

Erin LeFevre was baffled when her husband, Landon LeFevre, pointed out the discovery through their window Saturday morning. The LeFevres live on the edge of Rexburg, on 5th West.

“I was like, ‘Are you sure? Is it a deer?’ because we have a little herd of deer that come around the neighborhood. There’s 12 of them that hang out,” Erin LeFevre said.

She said she took her binoculars out to check, and sure enough a dead moose was melting out under piles of snow.

“You could just see it being revealed in the middle of the snow,” LeFevre said.

LeFevre wasn’t sure whether to put the moose in a burn pile or to bury it, so she resorted to a Facebook group for a solution.

“On ‘Life in Rexburg,’ someone will tell me what to do with that dead moose,” LeFevre said.

The first few comments told her to contact the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Soon she was in contact with the department, and later that afternoon officers were able to remove the moose from her backyard.

“It got bigger as they uncovered it from the snow and it was huge,” LeFevre said.

Erin said at first officers had predicted the death of the moose could have been due to the Japanese yew plant. The yew is a toxic plant that can kill wildlife if consumed.

Fish and Game spokesman Gregg Losinski told EastIdahoNews.com the plant would have killed the moose nearly instantly. However, that wasn’t the case in this situation.

“The only thing the officers were able to determine was that it was an adult cow that was in pretty bad body condition,” Losinski said. “In this case it looks like it was in bad shape and then died and then it was covered up by snow.”

Losinski said the animal carcass was fairly deteriorated and there wasn’t much to check out.

“It died probably of malnutrition or something related to that,” Losinski said.

As for the LeFevre’s they’re happy to have the animal out of their yard. They say they continue to get remarks about the experience some are calling “a typical Idaho thing.”

“People think it’s either funny or sad or amazing,” LeFevre said.