Earlier this week, community members in Red Lodge, Montana, did a double take when they saw someone huge patronizing their local skate park.
The unlikely skater wasn’t a skater at all. He was an adult bull moose — and he needed help.
According to Cowboy State Daily, the moose fell into Hellroaring Skate Park’s halfpipe around 10 a.m. on September 7. Unable to maneuver the steep concrete walls, the anxious animal wandered the bowl, hopelessly stuck.
Moose and bear sightings are increasingly common in Red Lodge, a community situated near many federal wilderness areas and national parks, though the animals rarely end up in situations like this.
For hours, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks staff and local police surrounded the bowl, trying to usher the moose toward an exit at the bottom of the halfpipe.
Concerned residents watched from afar, hoping for a happy ending.
“[He] appears exhausted,” one onlooker wrote in a post at the time. “Everyone is concerned about him.”
Unable to coax him out of the skate park, rescuers decided to safely sedate the moose. Once he fell asleep, they used a harness to lift him out of the bowl and into a trailer.
As reported by Cowboy State Daily, team members took the moose to a nearby park and waited for him to wake up.
Finally free and thankfully uninjured, the moose happily returned to his home in the wild.
