Middle school teacher photographs
animals encased in ice, lying on their sides with antlers apparently locked, in
‘vision of how brutally harsh life can be’
Associated Press in Anchorage
Saturday 19 November 2016
17.13 GMT
Two moose were recently
discovered frozen in battle and encased in ice near a remote village on
Alaska’s unforgiving western coast.
Brad Webster, a middle school
social studies and science teacher in Unalakleet, captured images of the huge
animals poking through the ice as they lay on their sides with antlers
apparently locked together.
He had taken a friend who
recently moved to the village for a walk on 2 November near a frozen slough at
Covenant Bible camp, where Webster volunteers as a camp steward.
“That’s when we saw it,” he said in a phone
interview Friday. He initially thought it was just one moose that had been shot
but when he got a closer look, he saw the second moose.
It took him a moment to realize
what he was seeing, he said.
It was the end of moose rutting
season, and the animals were probably fighting over a female moose. Webster
speculates that one of the animals was wounded by the other animal’s antlers,
and perhaps died as their antlers were caught together, dragging the rival down
with it.
“It was a very interesting
experience,” Webster said of the discovery.
On the way back to Unalakleet, he
and his friend kept thinking about it and saying, “We really saw that,” in
amazement, Webster recalled.
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