Couple Woke Up To A Real Life Moose Stuck In Their Swimming Pool
One morning in Ottawa, Paul Koch looked out at his swimming pool and found something he never expected, a female moose tangled in the solar cover and paddling around in the deep end.
Koch had already been seeing more wildlife near his home since the COVID-19 outbreak began, but nothing prepared him for a moose in the pool. He rushed outside, pulled the cover off, and watched as the animal kept swimming without much trouble.
Then the real question became how to get her out safely.
“We’ve lived in this house for 40 years, and this is the first time I’ve seen a moose this close to the city,” Koch said.
“I looked out in the backyard and there was this moose absolutely panicked and struggling,” Koch told The Dodo. “She stepped on the solar blanket, put her foot through it, and got all tangled up; she was desperately trying to get free.”
This is pretty similar to the family whose backyard moose and calves napped, played, and knocked over marigolds.
Moose are known to be adept swimmers; they spend a significant amount of their time in the water — especially when they want to graze on underwater plants during the winter. They can even hold their breath for almost a whole minute by shutting their nostrils.
The moose seemingly couldn't figure out how to escape the pool. Koch was forced to call wildlife services and the police so they could help the poor moose.
“She looked so forlorn out there that my wife said, ‘I want to give her a hug,’” Koch said.
The wildlife services workers hoped they wouldn't need to tranquilize the helpless moose to help get her out of the pool, but they would never be able to do it until she was finally out of the water.
Thankfully, it turned out that all the moose needed was a little bit of extra time to free herself.
For another close-call, see how a mother moose confronted a grizzly to protect her young, in this dramatic encounter.
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