All police officers swear to an oath to protect, serve… and occasionally cut moose tangled up in wire loose.
This past week, authorities in Latah County, Idaho responded to a call from a property owner asking for assistance. The thing they needed help with? There was a young moose that had gotten itself really mixed up in some wire fencing, and a concerned citizen called a welfare check in.
So Deputy Frantz headed out to the scene to check things out.
As you might imagine, it wasn’t hard to spot – or hear – a moose that was all tangled up. The deputy approached with what looks like branch clippers (bolt cutters would have been nice), and got to work:
“Okay buddy… there you go, hang on. Don’t tangle me up in it.”
Deputy Frantz wasn’t kidding when he said that… the moose was flailing in a way that was sending the fencing flying and flopping every which way.
I’ve also got to point out that the noises the moose makes are grunts of distress I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. Obviously it was a stressful situation for the animal, and in the beginning, it could have been more cooperative. The young creature wasn’t exactly being helpful at first, but at one point, the moose seemed to realize that the police officer was there to help, and settled down.
That’s when Frantz was really able to get to work:
“Easy buddy. Easy… I gotchya. Hold on, a couple of more clips.”
The moose patiently waited for the police officer to do some more clipping, but eventually, the animal figured that it could handle the rest of the untangling. It popped up and started shaking the remaining leg that was still somewhat stuck, and once it realized it was free, it took off running.
All Deputy Frantz could do was stand back and watch as the wild animal he had just helped ran off to resume its regularly scheduled moose activities:
“This week, Deputy Frantz responded to a welfare check on a juvenile moose who was having beef with some wire. The moose was cut loose and sent on his way, safe, sound, and full of apples.”
Great to see that the young moose got some help and got out of there.
Social media users that came across the video online were happy that the police officer was able to assist, but a lot of them couldn’t help but notice that the tools Deputy Frantz was equipped with could have been better:
“The moose was clearly exhausted from fighting with the fence.”
“Cutting wire with branch clippers is tough but that’s probably all the property owner had.”
“I want some of my tax money to go for a better set of wire snips.”
“As soon as the moose saw the cutters, it understood the assignment.”
“Wonderful save… time to sharpen the cutters.”
Or keep a set of bolt cutters in the squad car.
Shoutout to Deputy Frantz for helping the moose out of the sticky situation, and all in all, it was great to see an example of humans and animals helping each other out (the youngin’ did its part to stay still in order to get untangled).
