The ultimate battle between two moose in western Alaska has been preserved in time.
The two moose, found by social studies and science teacher Brad Webster, appeared to have drowned fighting over a female moose. The animals were found near Unalakleet, on the Bering Sea coast and were preserved perfectly after the water around them plunged into freezing temperatures.
“It was a very interesting experience,” Webster told the
Associated Press.
According to
The Washington Post, Webster was showing his friend around the grounds of a Bible camp that he helps maintain when he stumbled upon the animals.
“We were both kind of in awe,” Webster said. “I’ve heard of other animals this had happened to, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Webster then took his friend and Bering Strait School District Student Activities Director Jeff Erickson to the scene of the discovery. Erickson then shared the pictures on Facebook where they quickly went viral.
Webster and some friends plan to clean up and bleach the moose heads and display them at the Bible camp. Some of the remaining moose meat will be used as “trapping bait and dog food,” shared the
BBC.
While it may have been an unfortunate way for the moose to die, University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Biology and Wildlife Department Chair Kris Hundertmark said it might have been the better alternative.
“These two fellows were unfortunate in that they probably fell into the water while locked together and drowned,” he said. “Then again, that is a much quicker way to go than by getting locked together in some forest and slowly starving to death.”
