Snowmobilers rescue moose from hole

CORNER BROOK — A day of snowmobiling in the backcountry in the Bonne Bay Pond area turned into a rescue mission when a group from Corner Brook came upon a moose in distress on Sunday, Feb. 5.

Stephen Gardiner, Josh Keough, Morgan Hynes, Devon Knight, Zac Marshall and Jeremy Short usually ride in around the Lewis Hills, but on Sunday they decided to follow the snow to the White River Road area near The Jackladder on Route 430.

The group had been riding for about three hours, working their way into the backcountry, when they decided to stop in a ravine to get some shelter from the wind while having a snack.

Gardiner ventured up the ravine a little farther away from the group and was going through the woods on his snowmobile when he saw something sticking out of a hole.

“I thought it was a stump or something,” said Gardiner, “and then when I made the second loop, I actually saw the moose’s ears sticking up.

Even though the group started referring to it as Mr. Moose, he thinks it was a cow moose.

“It was a deep hole. She was standing up and it was still four feet over her head, he said.

Gardiner said it’s hard to say how long the moose had been in the hole, as he could still see some hoof prints even though the area was drifted over. When he approached the hole, he noticed she had some fur missing on one of her back quarters.

“I don’t know if she was rubbing it trying to get out.”

As he surveyed the situation, Gardiner figured the best thing to do was to use his shovel to dig a ramp to let the moose get up over the edge of the hole, and he set about shovelling, and used his Gopro video camera to capture the action.

With Gardiner just a few feet away from the moose, Devon Knight started to help dig the ramp.

It was the closest Gardiner has ever been to a moose.

“I was on the verge of if I don’t shovel this down on a right angle I’ll probably slip in, and it probably would not end up very good if I had to fall in,” he said.

“This could be very dangerous, but it’s a sin to leave a nice animal down in the hole.”

All they could do was their best and be safe about it.

Keough said that when he got to the hole, the moose looked tired and chilly from standing in one spot.

It also seemed a little worried by the snowmobiles, he said.

So, he and the others parked their machines away from her.

When the ramp was ready, the moose came out of the hole, but turned back toward it and fell in again.

Keough said it was upside down, and they didn’t know how to get her on her feet, and there was some water in the hole that the moose had been standing in and falling into.

“There’s a lot of river runoff and drainages and open holes that you can’t see because they’re just caught over enough that they look like they’re solid until something stands on it, then they’re gone into the hole,” said Keough.

The moose uprighted itself, but didn’t move at first.

“She was more nervous of us being there to come up out of the hole. So, when we stepped back, she just went on her way. She just trudged uphill at a 45-degree grade and just went on up over the hill and took off,” said Keough.

“Everybody was pretty happy to see the moose get out. It was a good feeling after we got it out,” said Gardiner.

The group never saw her after that.

“We kind of went in the opposite direction from her. Just kind of gave her a bit of peace,” said Keough.

While some may say they should have left the moose alone, both Gardiner and Keough said they couldn’t, because it likely would not have survived.

Gardiner said the moose deserved a chance just as much as any other animal and he knew it wasn’t getting out without help.

“Some people would say that was survival of the fittest, that’s just nature’s way of thinning out the herd,” said Keough

But he said the moose was in a water system and if left there to die and decompose it could have polluted the water.

“We didn’t want to leave her there,” said Keough, noting she looked young.

“We’re animal lovers ourselves, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a moose or a fish or whatever it is, if it needs help, we’re the kind of people that just like to help. We enjoy the backcountry, so we do favours for it because it does favours for us,” said Keough.