Photos of a Moose Rescue in Northern Ontario

This happened a while ago (spring of 2012), but I was just looking at some photos and thought of this again and thought I'd post it to share it to a wider audience.  It's the story of a moose that got trapped in a fiber pond in Ontario.  The notes below are taken from the email that I received about it:

Sunday April 15, 2012 dawned cloudy and cool in the little community of Terrace Bay, located along the north shore of Lake Superior.  My friend and fellow Conservation Officer Jeff Anderson stopped by the house, my wife Eleanor made fresh coffee and we were enjoying a day off now that the fishing season for walleye had finally closed.

When the phone rang that morning, it was to alert us that a moose was helplessly mired in a spillway next to the towns pulp mill. Normally, the hustle and bustle of a busy factory would discourage wildlife from getting too close, but in this case, the mill had been idle for quite some time and the mill yard was quiet and tranquil. 

The large man-made ponds that surround the property are part of a system used to treat waste water. They are all fenced except for the one closest to the buildings. Its unclear as to how the young adult bull wandered into the first one, maybe he was fleeing a vehicle on the nearby road, or perhaps he just thought it was a marsh. Whatever the reason, he attempted to cross the football-field sized settling pond and began breaking through the deep layers of sodden wood fiber. 

We quickly hatched a plan and began gathering some rope, hip waders and snowshoes while Jeff grabbed a patrol truck, uniform and shotgun. It was important to be prepared for any eventuality! When we all rendezvoused at the site, we were faced with the saddest looking animal you could imagine. Utilizing the snowshoes to stay on top of the layers of fiber, we were able to approach the bull, fasten a chain knot around his neck and attempt to pull him free utilizing the winch on Jeff’s patrol truck. Unfortunately, we could not pull him horizontally with sufficient force to drag him out without the risk of injuring him, so we needed a new approach.

Mill staff came to the rescue and arrived on scene with a large, tracked loader equipped with a boom grapple. The rest of us shovelled a space around the moose’s chest around which we were able to secure a heavy line. With this new ability to lift and pull from around the animals girth, the big bull was slowly drawn out of the muck and onto the bank. 

It appeared as though he had been there overnight and he was near death from exhaustion and stress.  Remarkably, by supporting him in a prone position, giving him a couple bottles of water to drink and rubbing his legs to restore circulation, he began to perk up! After 20 minutes and several attempts, he stood up on wobbly legs for the first time in many hours. He tolerated us as we held him up and later, as he began walking with our assistance. It was a very strange experience to calmly accompany him for the long walk around the ponds perimeter, but we all felt the same heart-warming feeling when he quietly stepped into the bush under his own power, and disappeared from sight.

Terrace Bay is a town on the north shore of Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada about 150km East of Thunder Bay.

This was written by Paul Dennis, Conservation Officer, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

Watch Out For Moose!

In many parts of Canada, large animals on the roads are a significant danger at night. If I'm not on a full divided highway, I rarely drive much above 80 km/h at night, and often slower than that, much to the annoyance of my passengers. Although it is kind of slow and painful, it occasionally pays off, like the other night.

On Thursday evening, I was driving a few kilometers away from my property in Port Elgin, and saw a moose on the highway. I swerved to the left, and missed it by about a foot. It's a good thing I swerved left, because if I had gone to the right, I would have hit a second moose behind the first that I didn't see initially. Or maybe even worse, I wouldn't have made it past the first one and hit TWO moose at the same time. This is exactly why I drive a lot slower at night.



(Click on the photos to see them in higher resolution).

I find that moose are harder to see than deer. For one, their coats are darker, so they don't stand out as much. Also, deer are skittish and usually turn to face an oncoming vehicle, so motorists often see the reflections from their eyes. However, a moose is usually either stupid or indifferent, or too high off the road surface for drivers in low cars, so you never see their eyes.

Hitting a moose isn't anything like hitting a deer. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have hit deer. It's the kind of thing that nearly every rural driver expects could happen at least once in their life. But all that a deer usually does is trash your car. I don't mean to downplay this type of accident, because hitting a deer is still very dangerous. Unfortunately, more than a dozen people die every year in Canada because of collisions with deer. I looked up the stats for deer accidents and the numbers in the United States are stunning: there are an average of a MILLION AND A HALF collisions per YEAR between deer and vehicles. That translates to about 150 deaths, which means that 0.1% of collisions result in fatalities. It seems like a low percentage, but that's still far too many. But your chances of getting killed when hitting a moose (or elk or caribou) are a LOT higher. A deer might weigh up to 200 pounds. A moose is usually north of a thousand pounds. Check out the photos at this link:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/moose.asp


Recently, our part of the province saw a very high profile moose accident just outside of Moncton, where a young couple died, leaving behind a 2-year old child:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/10/07/nb-neguac-funeral-rousselles.html


Here are a few tips from a BC website:

- Moose eyes do reflect the light from headlights, but often the moose's eyes are too high above the beam to catch the light. A grown moose often stands taller than a car.

- Moose are a hazard in summer (as well as in winter). They crave salt and often get it from the side of the road.

- Long straight stretches of road are still hazardous. Drivers tend to speed and thus cannot react in time if a moose or other animal does appear.

- Deer are herding animals. Just because you miss one does not mean you are clear of them.

- There are no studies proving conclusively that deer whistles work. It is better to be wildlife aware when driving, and not to rely on the whistle.


Anyway, next time you're driving at night and see a "wildlife on highway" sign, remember that you're going to get to your destination a lot FASTER if you don't run into an animal. Driving slowly isn't a bad idea.