A VALIANT EFFORT

PALMER — How many people pulling on ropes does it take to haul a moose out of an icy mud hole?

Apparently it takes half a dozen or more.

Tammy Barber, 36, was one of the people who went to help Wendesday when a neighbor boy, William Stephens, told her the moose was stuck. She, her son, her father and a gaggle of neighbors worked for about an hour with shovels and ropes.

“We’re part of Hatcher Pass search and rescue, so we had all of those people,” Barber said.

The moose was up to her neck in mud in a marshy area near the edge of Grella Lake. Barber said nobody ended up having to get down in the mud with the moose, but that doesn’t mean nobody got muddy.

“One of my son’s friends and my dad actually had to lay down and get their arms down in the mud to get the rope around her back legs,” she said. “It was pretty sad. She just couldn’t do it on her own.”

She said the rescue proceeded with the requisite degree of caution, given the moose is a wild animal. Still, they weren’t too worried so long as the moose was still stuck. The dangerous parts of her were mired in mud.

“She had all four legs in the hole,” Barber said. “We were definitely prepared for when she got out. We were all ready to be behind her.”

She said the moose did, at times, seem to get upset, what with all the activity, people, shovels and sticks around her. But the cold seemed to have taken its toll.

“There was no fight left in her,” Barber said.

Eventually, neighbors managed to pull the moose up onto the ice, where she immediately laid down. Barber said they tried to feed her some sticks but the moose didn’t seem to be interested.

Barber said she thinks the moose might have been pregnant.

“Her belly’s pretty big,” she said.

After she was out of the mud, Barber said, the neighbors left her alone, hoping she’d eventually find the strength to get up and start moving.

But come morning she was still lying where they left her

“I just actually went up and checked on her and she just passed away a couple of hours ago,” Barber said late Thursday afternoon.

Still, Barber didn’t seem upset or talk like the experience was anything but worthwhile.

“We’re moose hunters, but we don’t want to see any moose suffer for sure,” Barber said. “I wish she would have been able to get up.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.