Pierce Pond Camps are very remote, being about 35 miles from the nearest town and the last ten miles, being a private dirt road maintained by me as the camp owner. The local phone service stopped at the end of the main road, but the phone company agreed to let us hook onto the main line if we would build and maintain the ten miles of line to camp. So we did.
The line consisted of two open wires, and we mainly hooked it to trees along the road. It seemed like it was almost a full time job to keep it going because every time the wind blew there would be tree and limbs coming down to break it or wind it together and short it out. Another hazard was having a moose get into it now and then and tearing it down for miles, which is what happened this one particular day.
One morning at camp, I picked up the phone and it was dead. So I gathered up my tools and headed out on the road to find the problem. About three miles from camp I found the problem. A huge bull moose had gotten tangled in the line and hauled it down for over two miles. He was completely wound up in it over his entire body. He was almost immobile, but still could range a few feet each way. He didn't appear to be injured in anyway, so I went to the main highway and contacted the game warden. He came in immediately, looked the situation over and decided there would be no possible way to get near enough to him to get all the wire cut off. That left only one solution, and that was to put him down. I agreed that he was probably right, but asked if he would give me a half a day to try and free him—and the game warden granted me permission.
So, I went back to camp and gathered all the free hands I could spare, including my son, our gate keeper, and a couple of the guides. We stocked ourselves with lots of rope and wire cutters for the job and headed back to the moose tangle. Lots of our camp guests also came along to watch the “fracas”!
Here is what we faced: A huge trophy bull moose that probably weighed 1500 pounds or more and had a huge rack of horns. He was completely wound up in wire but still on his feet and could range twenty feet each way with surges.
I had a dump truck loaded with gravel nearby, so we backed the truck up as near as we could to him. We got up on the load of gravel with a long pole and after a long time we finally worked a long heavy rope onto his horns. We then hooked the long rope to a pick-up truck out front and very slowly towed the animal up close to the truck body and secured him there. We then got up on the load of gravel with our wire cutters and reached out when we dared to and started cutting wire. After what seemed like hours of maneuvering and cutting, we had him free of his bondage except for his feet and legs. Now, what to do? The next step was for three of us to move from the top of the load of gravel to underneath the truck body. As we dared, we would dart out and snip wires around his feet and believe it or not, before dark we had him completely free.
We climbed back on the load again and cut the big rope that held him. He just stood there for a long time looking at us (undoubtedly claiming silent victory), then finally shook his big head of horns and proudly went up over the ridge a free animal. I always wondered what he must have been thinking of the whole ordeal. Choosing the easy way out of this situation might have been a quicker solution, but it was not in the best interest of a healthy strong animal. Living in harmony with wild animals is a shared respect, one we take very seriously.