“It was a pretty dramatic incident,” Skaggs said. “This morning the concentration of people and the heightened excitement of the bull moose pursuing a cow moose caused her to run.

“She stumbled over a picnic table, landed into a fire grate and nearly severed her hind leg,” she said. “Because it was a serious, life-threatening injury, rangers euthanized the female moose.”

The cow left behind a yearling calf, Skaggs said.

“The calf was not injured in the commotion during this crush of people,” she said, “but we’re not sure whether the calf will survive the winter without her mother.”

Idaho resident Anne Huebner, who was staying at the campground, said the calf was bleating for its mother near the bank of the Gros Ventre River after the incident.

Huebner said she was at her campsite when she heard rangers’ gunfire around 8:30 a.m. A retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, Huebner was livid about the behavior of people photographing the moose in recent days.

“First of all, they don’t belong in the campground,” she said of the wildlife photographers, likening them to celebrity paparazzi. “They’re mostly trying to get shots, but they’re all way too close and they’re circling them.

“It’s a real shame that a cow has to be killed because human beings are being total jerks,” Huebner said. “It really breaks my heart to see people behaving like that. I feel sick to my stomach.”

Grand Teton park regulations prohibit people from getting nearer than 25 yards to a moose. The limit is 100 yards for bears and wolves.

The rules aren’t always being followed.

“We’ve had several reports of people getting way too close, even getting within 10 feet of a bull moose,” Skaggs said.

Reports this summer have come in of moose damaging cars and a tent, and charging people, Skaggs said.

After the moose was put down Wednesday, some photographers were antagonistic with rangers, she said.

“Comments were being made that ‘This is public land, and I have a right to be here and you can’t tell me to leave,’ ” Skaggs said.

Problems with wildlife watchers and photographers at Gros Ventre Campground have grown bad enough that authorities will soon close down some roads to give moose space, Skaggs said. Plainclothes law enforcement rangers will also patrol the area to cite those unwilling to police themselves, she said.