Two bulls (male moose) have reportedly been discovered frozen in time in the middle of what was once a flowing river in Alaska.
Image Credit: Jeff Erickson
“It was a very interesting experience,” Webster, a photographer of the spectacular find, said in a statement. “We [Webster and his friend] were both kind of in awe. I’ve heard of other animals this had happened to, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The antlers are reportedly locked together in the ice, suggesting they may have died during a fight that likely originated over dominance to win over a cow (female moose).
Interestingly, you’d think the animals would have just got up and left rather than letting the river swallow them up and eventually freeze them in time, right? But that’s where things get freaky.
One of the bulls was reportedly wounded, presumably by the others’ antlers. But the fact that the two antlers were locked together at some point during the fight had meant that the surviving moose was trapped, and so the flowing water was able to envelope both of them.
Both bulls, which passed away as a result of the unfortunate, but spectacular, event, likely lost out on their cow. But their story will now never be forgotten.
This isn’t something you see every day, and even those who discovered it were quick to say they’d never seen anything like it in their 50 years of hunting in the area. There’s no indication of how old the moose are, or how long they’ve been frozen like this.
The moose bodies were removed from the ice and the heads will be preserved – cleaned and mounted – as trophies of this finding. The rest of the meat from the preserved bodies is being used as hunting bait and dog food. Nothing is going to waste.
Source: Washington Post
