A moose was saved after some quick thinking and a daring ice rescue in Nopiming Provincial Park, Man., on Tuesday.
Russ Popp, who has lived on Bird Lake in Nopiming Provincial Park since 1966, said he received a call from a friend on Tuesday who saw a moose standing on the side of the road, and believed it was looking out at another moose who had fallen through the ice and into the frigid waters.
Popp, an avid hunter and retired big game outfitter, says he and his wife went down to see the moose, which had fallen through the ice on the Bird River. He phoned local conservation and, together, they jumped into action.
“We had to test the ice for thin ice, and to get out to it was very dangerous. In fact, I’ve never crossed that part of that ice on that river religiously. It’s a dangerous piece of water because of the current and the beavers keep it open and the otters keep it open,” Popp said.
“I’ve never trusted that river — November, December, January, February, March — and here I was on April (21), going to get this moose.”
Popp says when they first arrived, the moose was swimming back and forth and trying to get up on the ice. They went home and phoned conservation, and when they returned for a second time to rescue it, the animal was showing signs of exhaustion.
Popp estimates the moose was in the water for about four and a half hours.
Courtesy / Russ Popp
“It had its head on the ice and it was very exhausted, and it was just floating,” he said. He believes the moose spent about four and a half hours in the icy waters.
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“Hypothermia, the moose had ticks on it already and it’s lost some of its fur because of that, and it’s stressed out and it’s breathing heavy. You just got to keep working harder and harder and harder.”
“We were not going to leave that moose behind.”
Popp says he worked with two conservation offices and an fisheries employee, and started chopping about 100 metres of ice to make a path for the moose to shore, and put a rope around its neck to get it out. But that didn’t go exactly as planned.
“It was a very dangerous situation because it was pulling us back into the water with it. It didn’t want to get up on the ice,” Popp said.
“I was looking directly in its eyes and it was just looking at me, and it was very concerned. It was shaking, it could have just been from the cold, but it actually seemed to have been shaking nervously.”
Closer to shore, the moose couldn’t get its footing as it was sinking into the boggy river bottom, he said.
“We actually tied the moose a different way to roll it instead of coming out forward, and it was a real satisfaction,” Popp said, adding that after the moose was freed, it walked off into the woods, and he thought he heard it calling to another moose.
Popp also says that after a devastating wildfire destroyed much of Nopiming Provincial Park last summer and came within about 500 metres of his home, saving this animal was a real honour.
“It wiped out most of the provincial park. There’s a lot of wolf activity killing moose on this lake and bringing the numbers down, plus the wood ticks, the brainworm from the deer …. The moose are having a hard time. They lost a lot of their habitat from this fire. So to save any moose was a great feat, and it was a reward and an honour.”
“I know one thing, I couldn’t sleep at night in my bed knowing that moose was in the river,” he added.
“So after saving that moose and chopping all that ice, I slept very well last night.”
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