Frozen in time: Fighting moose entombed in ice mid-combat
Two moose have been discovered frozen in battle and encased in ice near a remote village on Alaska's unforgiving western coast.
Brad Webster, a social studies and science teacher in Unalakleet, captured images of the massive 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 November 2 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 on 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 realise what he was seeing, he said.
It was the end of moose rutting season, and the animals likely were 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.
