Motorists travelling the Carcross Road last Sunday may be essential witnesses to a pregnant cow moose being shot and abandoned that afternoon but not even know it.

Territorial conservation officer Ken Frankish said it's entirely possible a motorist has important information but isn't aware of how vital it is to the investigation.

If, for instance, the guilty party shot the moose from inside a vehicle, a passing motorist may have only seen what he or she took to be a car or truck parked on the side of the road just north of the Annie Lake Road with occupants watching wildlife

It's not at all unusual in the Yukon to see something like that, he pointed out at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon. Reporters were given the specifics of the case in hopes of drumming up help from the public to solve it.

It may be, said Frankish, that the car or truck parked alongside the road likely between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. could have had a poacher sitting inside with a high-powered rifle and scope, though there would be no way for a passing motorist to notice that.

Evidence indicates the shooter was on the roadside, about 60 metres from the moose. The cow was shot about six or seven centimetres behind the ear.

Regional biologist Rob Florkiewicz of the Department of the Environment was travelling the highway about 4 p.m. when he noticed a blue, older model, four-door Jeep-type vehicle parked on the side of the road.

The middle-aged, bearded driver was taking pictures of two moose off in the meadows, about 1.2 kilometres north of the turnoff, or halfway between the Annie Lake Road and the entrance into the Robinson subdivision.

Florkiewicz said he stopped with his family to show his children the moose. And it's an area of general concern to him because of its proximity to the highway and its attraction for moose, as well as being a corridor for caribou.

After looking around for a bit, he noticed a third moose laying down about 25 to 30 metres from the other two moose, though something seemed out of place.

'It did not look quite right to me,' Florkiewicz said. 'Then, at one point, it tried to get up and it could not, and I knew something wasn't right.'

The biologist said he walked to within about five metres of the cow and saw the blood. With no tracks leading to the highway, it was obvious she'd been shot, he said.

Florkiewicz returned to his home in the area and contacted the conservation officers at 4:12.

By the time deputy conservation officer Larry Bill arrived and he and Florkiewicz walked into the site, the moose was dead.

Given the location of the wound, its size and the hole in the snow where the blood poured down, the cow would have died quite quickly, the biologist suspects.

In fact, said Florkiewicz, he believes the animal was shot not much more than a half-hour before he arrived on the scene maybe even shorter than that. However, he's pretty sure it couldn't have been much longer.

Frankish said the Department of the Environment is pleading with anyone who may know anything, or was travelling along the Carcross Road last Sunday afternoon and noticed a vehicle parked in the area north of the Annie Lake Road, to contact the department.

'We have a fairly serious violation of the Wildlife Act,' Frankish told reporters.

If it's a matter of wanting to remain anonymous for whatever reason, there is the Turn-in-Poachers (TIP) telephone line where callers can pass on information with no questions asked regarding their identity, the CO pointed out.

He also noted the TIP program offers rewards for information leading to convictions that can also be passed on anonymously.

In this case, given it was a cow moose with two fetuses that was shot in an area where the moose population is already in trouble and left to die with no attempt to salvage the meat, the reward could be substantial, Franish suggested.

In particular, the department is hoping to hear from the driver who was stopped there taking pictures when Florkiewicz arrived.

Officers are also interested in talking with a couple driving a green Subaru Outback who went by the area in both directions while Florkiewicz was there, and had actually spoken with the biologist. As well, they're looking to speak with the occupants of a blue minivan that was parked in the area when the conservation officers arrived to investigate.

Bill said a bullet hole straight through a branch between the moose and highway indicates the shot was fired from the road.

But neither Bill nor Frankish could offer any explanation for the shooting.

Whether it was motivated by complete disregard and disrespect by somebody who just wanted to shoot something, or by a hunter planning to return for meat a few hours later under the cover of darkness, there is no telling, they said.

There is evidence from a resident in Robinson subdivision who was working outside that there was only one shot, though he did not note the time, Frankish said.

He said in addition to the obvious violation, the shooting occurred within a kilometre of a residence, which is illegal under the act.

The penalty for the offence is a fine of up to $50,000, a jail term, or both.

Florkiewicz said he was upset and dissappointed at what he found.

As the wildlife manager for the Southern Lakes region, Florkiewicz has often heard the community and aboriginal elders speak of their concern for dwindling numbers of wildlife in the region.

In the early 1980s, the moose density in the region measured about 300 animals per 1,000 square kilometres. Twenty-five years later, it's a third of that, or 100 moose per 1,000 square kilometres, he said.

Residents of the area must realize wildlife populations can't sustain the harvest levels or this type of indiscriminate killing that they could decades ago.

The person who shot this cow not only took her, but also removed two fetuses one male, one female that would have started contributing to the local moose population in a couple of years.

The moose population, he said, is like a cheque book; if you keep writing cheques without replenishing the account, at some point, you're overdrawn, and you're going down.