On Easter Sunday, a group of neighbors and troopers managed to save a moose that had fallen through the ice on the Chena River.
Gary Niese, a Fairbanks resident, saw the moose tumble in.
‘I looked out the window here and right over there you could see this moose fighting for his life,’ Niese told KTUU, an Anchorage news station. ‘He was clearly unable to get out of the hole and was fighting with all his effort.’
A few hours later, Alaska State Troopers joined the rescue.
‘Naturally, when I heard the call come out on the radio about a moose that needed to be freed from the ice, that sounded a lot more exciting than what I was doing at the time,’ said trooper Trevor Norris. ‘So me and the guys ran out there and used it as an opportunity to help out.’
A couple of men tried to pull the moose out by tying a rope around its legs, but it grew exhausted. With more neighbors joining the resue, six folks managed to get the moose to successfully climbed out of the hole.
According to a Facebook post the troopers put up, ‘Although tired and cold, the moose was able to stand on its own and thankful for the assistance.’
After being brought to safety, the moose stood next to the troopers without moving, its head covered in ice.
‘Well now what are we going to do with you?’ asked Niese.
In their post, the tropped wished “the moose a Happy Easter and warned her of the dangers of thawing river ice.”
This winter, the state has seen a lot of moose incidents. In January and March, moose were saved in Wasilia and Anchorage. A moose entered a Soldotna residence last week, and another found its way inside an Anchorage hospital.
Additionally, an Alaskan couple’s Ring doorbell camera captured a moose sheeding its antlers in December.
