An Alaska man and two police officers saved a baby moose that was in serious trouble after falling into a lake and getting wedged between a floatplane and a dock.
Spencer Warren, who works at Destination Alaska Adventure Co., arrived for work early one morning to prepare a floatplane. He heard a strange noise and discovered a moose calf stuck between the plane’s floats and the dock at Beluga Lake in Homer, a community on the Kenai Peninsula, about 220 miles south of Anchorage. Floats are like wheels for planes that land on water instead of land.
Warren immediately thought about the moose’s mother and soon saw her nearby with another calf, which made him cautious. Mother moose are fiercely protective of their young — just last month, a photographer was killed by a moose in Homer while trying to photograph its calf.
A calf trapped in Beluga Lake in Homer, Alaska (Via Spencer Boucher/Shutterstock)
The baby moose struggled to get out of the lake but couldn’t gain traction on the metal float with its hooves. The mother moose kept a close watch and prevented Warren from approaching too closely.
Warren contacted his boss, who called the Homer police. An officer positioned his car between the mother moose and the floatplane so that another officer and Warren could safely rescue the calf. The calf was stuck with one leg across the top of the plane’s float.
“Fortunately, the calf wasn’t moving much, which made the rescue a bit easier,” Warren said. “We lifted it straight out and placed it on the dock.”
