'No training manual:' Video captures bull moose's 'amazing' rescue from icy New York lake
Without a much-needed assist from New York state officials, one moose could have could have spent more than just a few hours stuck in icy waters.
A resident tipped authorities off about the moose, telling them that it fell through the ice and into Lake Abanakee's frigid waters around 11 a.m. on Jan. 16, according to a news release from state's Department of Environmental Conservation. Lake Abanakee is located in the town of Indian Lake, about 120 miles northeast of Syracuse.
"There's no training manual on how to get a moose out of the ice," Robert Higgins, environmental conservation police lieutenant, said in a statement.
But he and other forest rangers at the scene came up with a game plan to get the moose free by cutting a channel through the ice with a chainsaw.
Video shows 'amazing' rescue of moose from icy waters
Forest ranger Evan Nahor cut through the ice while Higgins cleared the ice blocks, creating a path for the moose to free itself.
It was "good that we knew when the moose went in, we knew time wasn’t on our side, but it wasn’t going to take forever for us to do what we had to do," Nahor said in a statement. "It was 'do what we can with what we have.'"
Nahor and forest ranger Matt Savarie then helped guide the moose to shallow water near the shore. It took the moose several attempts, once freed from the water, to get up.
But once it did, the moose disappeared into the woods. The moose, later identified as a bull moose that lost its antlers, was in the water for about two hours before it was rescued.
"It was amazing," Higgins said. "I was really surprised it was able to climb itself out onto the ice after being in the water for two hours because it was really tired. It was shivering and didn’t have much energy left so it was a big deal when that thing came out and plopped itself onto the ice."