A Calgary man is thanking the actions of his quick-thinking friends who jumped into action to save a stranded baby moose last week.
Stuart Gray lives in Calgary but has owned property in Millarville for the past four years.
He says he first spotted the baby, which was likely only a few weeks old, while out on a walk on May 29.
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“My sister was staying out at my ranch, and we were walking by the pond, and I noticed the moose swimming in the water,” Gray said.
“We didn’t think much of it — we thought it was going to get out. But we came back 20, 25 minutes later and it was still swimming in the water.”
He figures the calf might have gotten spooked by traffic and ran down the hill, not thinking there was a pond there.
After a while, the moose appeared to stop attempting to get out, so Gray knew it needed help.
Gray says his friend Rob, a wildlife enthusiast, was the one who went into the water to rescue the animal.
“Whenever I have wildlife issues, I call him up, and he happened to be in the neighbourhood, so he came out and he took action.”
That action involved Rob wading into the water to get a hold of the baby moose, which had gotten caught up in the reeds lining the pond — which Gray says is about 12 feet deep at the centre.
“That little guy was going to have a hard time getting out of there,” he said.
In the video, the baby moose is seen being carried out of the water by Rob, then lifted over a fence and back onto dry land.
The baby is then seen walking up to Gray’s bull, possibly mistaking it for its mother.
“It walked up to that bull. Bulls are nice animals — they can be. The moose walked up to it and it decided, ‘No, you’re not my mother.’”
Gray says he first saw the moose’s mother lingering around the pond but couldn’t see her by the time the baby was rescued.
Despite that, he’s pretty certain she didn’t abandon her calf.
“The mother was around,” Gray said.
“We’re pretty sure they got together because that’s what happens — baby gets out and mother finds baby. Should be all good.”
Gray says the experience is another example of the wildlife he gets to see outside the city every day.
“There’s lots of wildlife, lots of moose, elk and deer and everything you can imagine out there,” he said.
He says it felt good to rescue the moose, and he wanted to share the tale because of all the bad news that he’s been hearing lately.
“We love animals. We love seeing animals out there. It’s part of the reason for buying the property, just the beauty of nature.”
