A female moose calf is lucky to be alive after a dramatic rescue on the Sheep River, just outside of Calgary.
Earlier this week, off-duty Calgary firefighter Scott Linton was kayaking with his friend Benny Clark — who paddles for a living — when they spotted something in the water, clearly in distress.
“Benny says, ‘Moose,’ and I didn’t see it (at first)… and we startled her, and she got up and fell into the river,” Linton said.
The two experienced kayakers did not hesitate to jump into action and quickly hopped out of their boats.
Armed with only a rope, which was held by Clark, Linton trudged through the rushing waters and was able to catch her and pull her to safety.
“We jumped out of our boats, I gave him the rope and he went for it,” Clark said.
In the video, you can hear the moose cry, and then Linton calls out, “Got it, got her.”
“I wasn’t worried about the river. I was basically (thinking) just like how heavy is this moose… If you branded a two-month-old calf and lifted it up, that was basically the weight of it,” Linton said.
“She was tired and cold. We could see she was shaking.”
Clark said they didn’t think twice and treated the situation like rescuing a person.
“You just go in the mode, serious, get it done. Kind of just acted like a human being going by… I think it was partly our fault, so getting her out of the river, it was we should have done,” he said.
Clark said being an avid kayaker, he’s used to things moving quickly down the water.
“I wasn’t too worried about the river. I could handle Mindy (the name they gave the moose) it was more like where’s mama at? Because they can be aggressive,” he said.
The pair believe the calf was only about two to four weeks old and are hopeful it will be reunited with its mother.
“I think I heard the mother calling back when she was calling a little bit… so hopefully she found mom,” Clark said.
“It was really cuddly. It was nice. I would have taken her home… Was a nice little moose. Mindy the moose,” Linton said.
– With files from Jayme Doll
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