Add “moose attack” to your list of hazards in the Nevada backcountry.

The state’s northern reaches appear to be home to a small but growing number of the gangly ungulates, according to the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

The increased number of sightings suggests moose are no longer just visiting the Silver State and are putting down roots.

“It’s time we start talking about moose in Nevada,” Kari Huebner, an NDOW biologist said Friday during a television interview in Elko. “We’re starting to get enough sightings that we think we actually have a population here,” she said on KENV Channel 10.

Nevada moose sightings in recent years have been concentrated in Elko and northern Humboldt counties. And they’ve included bulls, cows and calves, which suggests they’re establishing a population.

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NDOW spokesman Joe Doucette said the department is trying to get the word out to hunters and others who spend time in the backcountry.

They’re hopeful people will report sightings which would help NDOW determine how many moose there are in the state and where they’re living.

“It is really hard to count moose, they are often really in the thick willows, they are really in the thick alder,” Doucette said. “That is one of the reasons we are trying to get information from the public.”

Given the limited amount of viable moose habitat in Nevada, the driest state in the U.S., it’s likely the population is small, Doucette said.

Another reason NDOW wants to alert the public is to keep hunters from shooting them. Moose hunting is illegal in Nevada.

Doucette said elk hunters have mistakenly harvested two moose in the past two years. In each instance, the hunter was cited for hunting big game without a tag.

“We are just trying to make Nevada sportsmen and people out in the field aware we have moose,” Huebner said. “It really should be fairly obvious and this is why you should make sure you can see your target clearly before you ever take a shot.”

NDOW also wants people to know moose can be dangerous and that anyone who sees one in the wild should view it from a safe distance.

“They just get real aggressive, more so than the other wildlife we are used to in Nevada,” Huebner said.

She said cow moose with calves can be particularly dangerous.

“If anybody runs across a cow moose and she is in the trail you probably better step aside and let her go by,” she said.