A baby moose was able to run free after a group of people rescued it from a wire fence near Hazelton.
Cecilia Wilson, her husband Darryl, her brother and her dad were driving along Kispiox Valley Road on Jan. 25 at about 4 p.m. when they spotted the young animal on the left side of the road.
"It was tangled by the legs," says Wilson. "The barbed wire was around the back legs."
The group noticed a moose nearby that they suspected was its mother.
While her family was approaching the moose, Wilson tried to flag down someone driving by, to help. They brought wire cutters and Wilson's husband had a chainsaw file in the truck.
"He grabbed that and gloves and proceeded to try helping it," she says.
Darryl managed to cut the fence and unwrap the wire from the animal's legs, but the baby moose didn't get up.
In a video taken by Wilson, you can hear her say "we don't know how long it's been down for" and "got to be careful."
Wilson kept a lookout for the mother moose as they tried to encourage the baby to get up. In the video, you can see the moose moving its back legs.
After a few minutes, it finally stood up.
"C'mon moose, get up moose! There you go moose! Yes," yells Wilson. "Wohoo! Bye moose!"
The animal sauntered off from the group as they cheered.
"That was the funniest and scariest moment of my life," says Wilson.
After the baby moose was freed, Wilson says the mother moose appeared to charge at her. She quickly went back in the truck.
Moose rescued in B.C.'s interior
Earlier this week, a couple spotted a moose tangled in a fence and lying on its side. Angie Hillmer and Kirk Barharn were driving along Princeton Summerland Road in the Interior and got out of their vehicle to help the moose.
“It was looking at me with one big red eye,” recalls Barharn. “I wasn’t scared. I just figured I need to help this animal."
He managed to get the first hoof out easily; the second one, however, proved to be more challenging.
“I was stressing. I actually had to take a little break and take a breath. It was very tight and I basically had to give it a lot of pull on the wire to unhook it,” says Barharn.
In the video, the moose gives a slight kick and stands up when freed.
“It just stood up and trotted off into the forest. It looked fine,” he says. “It didn’t look like there was any damage to its legs.”
B.C. conservation officer Brandon Beck is grateful people are willing to help the animals but suggests calling the 24/7 RAPP line at 1-877-952-7277.
“It might be a better process to phone us just because we have all the equipment available," he says.
Moose will get stuck in a fence when they're being chased, he adds. And while it does happen, it's not super common, he says.
