Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials say a witness was mistaken when telling the Daily Camera that visitors to Brainard Lake saw a hunter kill a bull moose last week as they were enjoying watching the animal.

Complicating the situation is that a cow moose actually was taken by a licensed hunter the same day nearby, but not within view of any witnesses, officials said.

“I don’t think there was any malice” associated with the false report, said Park and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill.

Churchill said Parks and Wildlife personnel established that there was a large ditch in the area where the bull moose was being watched Thursday by Brainard Lake visitors. It is believed by investigators that when witnesses saw the moose drop out of sight, in close conjunction with a hunter’s appearance, the animal, in fact, had likely just moved down into the ditch — rather than toppling over mortally wounded.

However, Churchill said that same hunter — a Parks and Wildlife employee — did take a cow some distance from the sighting of the bull moose later the same day.

DNA from the “gut pile” associated with that cow kill, she said, is being tested to verify that, in fact, it was a cow and not a bull.

Churchill said the hunter, just prior to being seen in the vicinity of the bull moose watched by Carla Johnson, of Boulder, and others, had felt “pinned down” by the animal and had tossed some pebbles at it to encourage it to move along. And he had heard an “Oh, my God,” after the bull moose subsequently dropped from onlookers’ field of vision.

“He tried to yell to her, ‘I don’t have a bull moose tag,’ but he didn’t know if she heard him or understood that he wasn’t going to hunt that bull moose,” Churchill said.

The hunter subsequently killed a cow at least 300 yards east of that location, Churchill said.

Jeff Magoon, an Alexandria, Va., resident who was visiting Johnson and was with her at Brainard Lake, was told of Churchill’s comments about what they did — and did not — see.

“All I can tell you is what we saw,” Magoon said. “As soon as the moose disappeared, the guy with the fluorescent hat popped up. That’s all I can tell you. I don’t know anything else. It had to be a bow and arrow because we didn’t hear anything.”

Asked if he saw archery equipment, Magoon said, “We were a couple hundred yards away. Maybe we just saw a moose disappear.”

Was it possible the reason they heard nothing is that the bull moose wasn’t killed?

“I have no idea,” Magoon said. “Of course, it’s possible.”

Johnson on Tuesday termed the episode’s latest twist “a very bizarre story.”

“That’s possible, that it just stepped down out of sight into the ravine, and two seconds later there’s the hunter, by bizarre coincidence. But all 20 of us standing there had the same reaction,” Johnson said. “So it wasn’t just me. I would be thrilled if a moose wasn’t killed. It all seems strange.”

The Parks and Wildlife Commission adopted changes to hunting regulations in March at Brainard Lake in response to public concern about witnessing a moose legally killed at the popular recreation location in September 2014. Moose hunting is now closed 1⁄4 mile from the high waterline of Brainard Lake until the U.S. Forest Service closes the gate to the area, generally around the first snow of the season.

The state’s moose season for archers ran from Sept. 12 to Sept. 27. The rifle season is from Oct. 1 to Oct. 14. The cow harvested near Brainard Lake on Thursday was killed legally by rifle, Churchill said.

Churchill said nine moose tags were issued for this year in two game management areas including Boulder and Larimer counties. There were two tags for bulls taken by archery, one for a cow by archery, two for bulls killed by rifle and four for cows killed by archers.

Johnson said the “he said, she said” is less important than “the issue of killing, right next to people, and is that really what everybody wants? …Why do they have to do it at Brainard Lake?”

Charlie Brennan: 303-473-1327, brennanc@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/chasbrennan