Wildlife officials took down a moose Saturday morning in the Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City.

First spotted in the area early Friday evening, the animal had probably wandered out of City Creek Canyon looking for foliage, officials said.

Sgt. Scott White of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said the wayward moose - a male, estimated to be 2 years old and 800 pounds - was the third captured this year alone. Like the others, this one will be released in Colorado, as part of an exchange program in which Utah trades moose for bighorn sheep.

During the stare-down in an alleyway off Ninth Avenue and I Street, and after the animal's fall, onlookers gathered to catch a glimpse of the moose before it headed off to its new home.

Sonia Joyce, 48, posed for pictures with the drugged moose. Many other people - including police officers and a pregnant woman - did the same.

"I just love living in a place where this happens," Joyce said. "We have all kinds of wildlife, but this is a first. This is awesome. And he smells much better than most critters we get going through here."

After cameras stopped clicking, the moose was moved onto a tarp that took nine people to carry.

Sporting a solar-powered radio transmitter, now affixed to his ear for easy tracking, it hunkered down in a waiting trailer - its last hurrah in Utah officially over.

jravitz@sltrib.com