An Alaska man named Spencer Warren and two police officers saved a baby moose from what police called “a sure demise” after it fell into a lake and got stuck in a small space between a floatplane and a dock.
Warren, who works for a tourism company called Destination Alaska Adventure Co., had gotten to work around 6:30 a.m. on Friday to get a floatplane ready for the day’s trip. That’s when he heard a noise that sounded like a strange bird.
He quickly realized it was a moose calf that was stuck between the floats of the plane and the dock at Beluga Lake in Homer, Alaska. Homer is a town about 220 miles (350 kilometers) south of Anchorage. Floats are used instead of wheels on a plane so it can take off and land on water.
Warren’s first thought was, “Oh, man, where is mama? I know she’s nearby.” He then saw the worried mother moose about 4 feet (1.2 meters) away with another calf. Mother moose can be very dangerous when they’re protecting their babies. Just last month, a photographer in Homer was killed by a mama moose who was protecting her young.
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The baby moose kept trying to get out of the lake, but it couldn’t get a grip on the metal float with its hooves. “It’s like an ice rink for the moose and its hooves,” Warren said. “So he just kept slipping and slipping and could not get up.” The mother moose was making it hard for Warren to get close enough to help.
Warren checked with his boss, who called the Homer police. One of the officers used his police car to block the mama moose so the other officer and Warren could rescue the calf, according to Homer Police Lt. Ryan Browning.
The calf had one leg stretched out across the top of the plane’s float, and it was stuck. “You know, kind of thankfully, he wasn’t moving so that it made the rescue a little bit easier,” Warren said. “We just lifted him straight out and, put him on the dock there.”
The tired calf laid down on the boardwalk until an officer helped it stand up. The calf then reunited with its mother, who licked the water off its body. Warren caught the whole thing on camera.
“Anytime you can rescue a little critter, it always makes you feel good,” Browning said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.