- This moose is really lucky to not have broken any legs during its tumble.
Skateboarding is a cool sport that’s extreme to the max. Skaters pull off impressive tricks and stunts off structures such as half-pipes, pools, and bowls.
In fact, many of those structures are difficult to traverse if you don’t have a skateboard. And even more so if you have four legs terminating in hooves.
One bull moose in Montana recently found out that if you don’t know how to skate, you should stay out of skate parks. The wandering animal fell into a skate bowl, a concrete structure that’s essentially an empty swimming pool with curved walls.
However, the moose quickly discovered that it was hopelessly stuck. The poor beast exhausted itself, trying in vain to climb up the slippery concrete walls.
It took several hours before rescuers finally managed to sedate the moose and haul him out of the bowl. Fortunately, the tale has a happy ending, and the moose was returned to the woods, no worse for wear.
Local Fixture
Although he doesn’t have a nickname, the moose is well known to the residents of Red Lodge, Montana. The sizeable bull regularly roams the woods around the town, occasionally accompanied by a cow and a calf.
These are words they use for moose; we’re not talking about bovines.
When I said the bull was sizeable, I meant it. He’s a beast in his prime with a size to match.
“He’s a monster,” Don Hardy, a Red Lodge local, summarized for the Cowboy State Daily.
On October 7, the moose got a bit braver than usual and wandered into town. Specifically, he went to check out the local skate park.
There, he found the park’s bowl, a large concrete pool several yards deep. And, of course, he managed to fall in.
To emphasize just how deep this pool was, the moose’s antlers would not reach its edge while it was standing on the bottom. Considering the size of this beast, that’s one deep hole.
With that, the moose naturally discovered that it was hopelessly stuck in the bowl. Without a skateboard, the hooved beast had no chance of scaling the walls to freedom.
No Climbing Out
Red Lodge locals luckily noticed very quickly that their favorite moose had gotten itself into trouble. They called the authorities for help around 10 a.m., shortly after the moose fell into the pool.
However, it took quite a while before help arrived. By noon, the beast had exhausted itself trying to climb out.
“When we went by, the moose apparently was really worn out trying to get out … he was lying there looking exhausted,” Hardy recalled.
Soon after, rescuers finally arrived. That wasn’t the end of the story, though, as pulling a full-grown bull moose out of a swimming pool is not the easiest task in the world.
Initially, the rescuers – consisting of people from Montana wildlife services and the local fire and police departments – tried helping the moose help itself. They laid down tarps and tried to rig up structures that would allow the moose to climb out on its own.
That didn’t work. So, then they attempted to build a big cushion on which the moose could lie down and get pulled out.
That didn’t work, either.
Bring Out the Drugs
Eventually, it was determined that the moose had to be sedated and dragged out of the bowl. The police cordoned off the area while the wildlife agents brought out a tranquilizer gun and shot a dart at the moose.
And then they played the waiting game. It turns out that it takes a while for sedatives to work on a ginormous moose.
Finally, by 2 p.m., the moose fell asleep. Wildlife authorities pushed the snoozing giant on a tarp, and then a dozen people spent a good while hauling him out of the bowl.
Finally, some five hours after it fell into the pool, the moose was out. Wildlife officials loaded him onto a trailer and took him outside of town.
After waking up, the moose wobbled off into the woods.
“It’s been an exciting day in Red Lodge,” resident Traci Mark remarked.