Last week, a bull moose tangled its antlers in a rope hanging from a backyard zipline at a home south of Breckenridge. When wildlife officials arrived, they had to tranquilize the 1,000-pound animal to untangle it from the rope.

After a short investigation, the officials learned the moose had been lured to the home because the residents had placed a salt rock in the yard to bring wildlife to the spot, said Elissa Slezak, district wildlife manager with Colorado Parks and Wildlife in Summit County.

“It’s illegal and irresponsible,” she said.

Last week, a moose was tangled and stuck in a zip line. Our officers tranquilized it and were able to free it. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the homeowner had placed a salt block out to attract wildlife to the home. The owner was cited for violating the law. pic.twitter.com/0xPA7BiIiR — CO Parks & Wildlife (@COParksWildlife) October 23, 2018

The incident is one of many that officials with the agency said is an uptick in the number of conflicts between humans and the state’s approximate 2,500 moose.

“Over the past few months myself and my fellow officer in Summit County have been getting moose calls almost daily,” said Slezak, who has worked in the county for six years.

While the agency doesn’t maintain statistics about the number of moose incidents reported to them, Slezak said she has seen the number of conflicts steadily increase over the last few years. Most of those calls are simply to report a moose in an area populated by people, but the officers also hear multiple reports a month about a moose charging a person, Slezak said.

And those she hears about are likely a fraction of the ones that occur, she said.

The number of calls started to increase in the spring of 2017, she said. Since then, she’s received reports of people attempting to hand feed moose and attempting to pet them. So far this year, she’s collected more than a dozen salt blocks meant to attract wildlife but actually changes the animals’ natural behavior, attracts them to residential areas and can transmit diseases.

One woman video recorded herself feeding a moose through her car window and then posted the video online.

“The public shaming was probably worse than the ticket we gave her,” Slezak said.

Nobody has reported any serious injuries due to an attack, Slezak said, but the increase in reported human-moose incidents prompted Parks and Wildlife staff to create a video.

The lack of injuries is good for the moose population. Wildlife officials euthanize any moose that injures someone, even if irresponsible human behavior prompted the animal to defend itself, said Mike Porras, spokesman for Parks and Wildlife’s northwest region.

“It becomes an automatic death sentence for that animal,” he said.

While moose are particularly active during fall mating and spring calf-rearing, human conflicts with the gangly creatures happen all year, Slezak said. Every year, they get reports of moose incidents on cross country ski trails.

It’s hard to determine the exact cause for the increased interaction, Porras said. But increased human and moose populations across the state make run-ins more likely, he said. As moose populations continue to grow, the animals are expanding their range to less remote areas and even occasionally wander through Front Range communities.

Some of the people involved in the conflicts are visitors from other states who might not have experience with wildlife, Slezak said. Others are long-time Colorado residents who do not abide by the rules or recent transplants to the area who might not be familiar with wildlife.

“They may live here and consider themselves local, but they aren’t educated about wildlife,” she said.

“We’re not a zoo,” she added.

If you live in an area with moose or happen to encounter one, here’s what you need to know: