Footage of a moose spotted loitering in Smithers, then stalking and kicking a passerby spread on social media sites Thursday, drawing blowback from some who thought the videographer should have intervened.

Laryne Gamble posted the nine-second clip to Facebook, writing that she spotted the moose on King Street in the northwestern B.C. town Wednesday afternoon.

"My sister in law had never seen a moose before so I decided to pull over and record a snippet but caught this instead," she wrote in the post.

In the video, the moose is filmed standing in a residential yard beside a sidewalk. After a pedestrian passes by, the moose steps over a snow bank and onto the sidewalk behind her.

The moose then appears to gauge its distance from the pedestrian before taking a few quick steps and kicking the woman on her shoulder. It is then that the video clip, which was also posted to YouTube, ends.

"I really hope the lady is okay," wrote Gamble.

After a couple of commenters criticized Gamble for not stopping the kick, she added more information about what happened to defend herself.

"If I knew what was going to happen I would have been a lot more quick on my feet," she wrote, adding the woman received assistance right away. "I could have done a lot of things during that time, yelled, chased it, whatever."

But she added doing so might cause more confusion for the moose.

Conservation officer Flint Knibbs had received calls earlier that day about the moose, but wildlife on the streets is just a "fact of life" in the town, he told CBC, adding that he would monitor the animal because of the incident.

"The best thing people can do is to be aware of their surroundings. So in this particular incident, the individual involved just didn't see the moose and through a chance encounter, ended up having to be right beside the thing," he said.

mattrobinson@vancouversun.com

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