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Video shows baby moose trapped in Alaska lake saved from “sure demise” as its worried mom watches
An Alaska man and two police officers saved a baby moose from what police described as a “sure demise” after it fell into a lake and got stuck in a narrow space between a floatplane and a dock. The dramatic rescue was captured on video.
Spencer Warren, who works for the outdoor tourism company Destination Alaska Adventure Co., had arrived at work about 6:30 a.m. Friday to prepare a floatplane for the day’s trip when he heard what he thought was an odd-sounding bird.
He quickly spotted the moose calf stuck between the floats of the plane and the dock at Beluga Lake in Homer, a Kenai Peninsula community about 220 miles south of Anchorage. The floats replace the wheels on a plane, allowing it to take off and land on water.
He immediately thought, “Oh, man, where is mama? I know she’s nearby,” before spotting the worried mother about 4 feet away with another calf. Mother moose can be dangerously protective of their calves – a photographer was killed by a mama moose protecting her young just last month in Homer.
Spencer Warren / AP
The baby moose tried to get out of the lake, but couldn’t get its footing on the top of the metal float with its hooves. Its wary mother was keeping Warren, the would-be rescuer, from getting too close as it struggled.
“It’s like an ice rink for the moose and its hooves,” Warren said of Friday’s rescue. “So he just kept slipping and slipping and could not get up.”
Warren checked in with his boss, who called Homer police.
One officer eventually positioned his police cruiser between the mama moose and the floatplane to allow another officer and Warren to rescue the calf, Homer Police Lt. Ryan Browning told The Associated Press.
The calf had one leg outstretched across the top of the plane’s float, where it was stuck.
“You know, kind of thankfully, he wasn’t moving so that it made the rescue a little bit easier,” Warren said. “We just lifted him straight out and, put him on the dock there.”
The exhausted calf splayed out on the boardwalk until an officer helped it stand. The calf reunited with its mother and she licked the water off its body – all of it caught on camera by Warren.
“Anytime you can rescue a little critter, it always makes you feel good,” Browning said.
The Homer Police Department posted Warren’s video of the dramatic rescue on Facebook.
“Sometimes you really get to do something important in life,” the police department wrote. “Our hats are off to Officers Morgan Tracy and Charles Lee who helped rescue a moose calf from sure demise early this morning.”
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, there are about 175,000 to 200,000 moose throughout the state. In the wild, moose rarely live more than 16 years.
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Renad Atallah is an unlikely internet sensation: a 10-year-old chef, with a repertoire of simple recipes, cooking in war-torn Gaza. She has nearly a million followers on Instagram, who’ve witnessed her delight as she unpacks parcels of food aid.
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We interviewed Renad via satellite, though we were just 50 miles away, in Tel Aviv. [Israel doesn’t allow outside journalists into Gaza, except on brief trips with the country’s military.]
“There are a lot of dishes I’d like to cook, but the ingredients aren’t available in the market,” Renad told us. “Milk used to be easy to buy, but now it’s become very expensive.”
I asked, “How does it feel when so many people like your internet videos?”
“All the comments were positive,” she said. “When I’m feeling tired or sad and I want something to cheer me up, I read the comments.”
We sent a local camera crew to Renad’s home as she made Ful, a traditional Middle Eastern bean stew. Her older sister Noorhan says they never expected the videos to go viral. “Amazing food,” Noorhan said, who added that her sibling made her “very surprised!”
After more than a year of war, the Gaza Strip lies in ruins. Nearly everyone has been displaced from their homes. The United Nations says close to two million people are experiencing critical levels of hunger.
Hamada Shaqoura is another chef showing the outside world how Gazans are getting by, relying on food from aid packages, and cooking with a single gas burner in a tent.
Shaqoura also volunteers with the charity Watermelon Relief, which makes sweet treats for Gaza’s children.
In his videos online, Shaqoura always appears very serious. Asked why, he replied, “The situation does not call for smiling. What you see on screen will never show you how hard life is here.”
Before dawn one recent morning in Israel, we watched the UN’s World Food Program load nearly two dozen trucks with flour, headed across the border. The problem is not a lack of food; the problem is getting the food into the Gaza Strip, and into the hands of those who desperately need it.
The UN has repeatedly accused Israel of obstructing aid deliveries to Gaza. Israel’s government denies that, and claims that Hamas is hijacking aid.
“For all the actors that are on the ground, let the humanitarians do their work,” said Antoine Renard, the World Food Program’s director in the Palestinian territories.
I asked, “Some people might see these two chefs and think, well, they’re cooking, they have food.”
“They have food, but they don’t have the right food; they’re trying to accommodate with anything that they can find,” Renard said.
Even in our darkest hour, food can bring comfort. But for many in Gaza, there’s only the anxiety of not knowing where they’ll find their next meal.
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Story produced by Mikaela Bufano. Editor: Carol Ross.
See also:
“Sunday Morning” 2024 “Food Issue” recipe index
Delicious menu suggestions from top chefs, cookbook authors, food writers, restaurateurs, and the editors of Food & Wine magazine.
