This elk needed some major help from humans.
Across the western United States, the elk rut is either in full swing or is starting to head up. Big bulls are getting frustrated and aggressive and this can be a dangerous time of year for the animals. Case in point is a bull elk that became entangled in telephone wires near Butte Falls, Oregon.
The Oregon State Police posted photos and video of the large bull that accidentally got his massive antlers hopelessly wrapped up in the wires on September 24. This type of incident seems to happen often to deer, elk and moose this time of year.
Fortunately for the bull, somebody spotted his dilemma and called in authorities to the rescue. As you'll see from the video, this bull is really stuck, but still has a ton of energy, making him far too dangerous to approach.
As you can see from the video, there was no way this elk was getting free on his own. The cable is wrapped too tightly around his antlers. Fortunately, it appears this happened close to a farm. In a more remote location, this elk may have been doomed to a slow, painful death.
The State Police's post says that the power company had to come out first to disable the power lines before authorities could safely proceed with a rescue. An officer with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is the one you saw tranquilizing the elk in this video.
This was the safest way for authorities to get in there and remove the wires. From the photos, it appears they had to use wire cutters to get at least some of the wire free. This sort of rescue minimizes the danger to both the animal itself and human rescuers who could easily be injured by an enraged and frightened elk.
The police say that the bull suffered no injuries in the incident and ran back to the wood once the drugs finally wore off. Nice job officers!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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