​New York rangers cut channel in ice to save moose from death in frozen lake

One day last week a small group of state forest rangers and environmental conservation officers saved an anterless bull moose from an almost certain death when it broke through the thin frozen surface of Lake Abanakee south of the village of Indian Lake.

The moose had apparently broken through the thin ice about 200 feet from shore into water over its head and was using its strong neck pressed against the ice around it to keep its head above water. Estimates are the huge animal was in the water Thursday from 10:30a.m.to 1:15p.m. when a three- to four-foot wide channel cut by the Department of Environmental Conservation rangers permitted it to get to shore.

Participating in the ranger rescue was Evan Nahor, a new ranger posted in Long Lake, who wielded the chainsaw to cut the channel for the most part, standing on dangerously thin ice. Last summer Evan married Sophie Day Arsenault of Long Lake and he is the son-in-law of Long Lake Town Supervisor Clay Arsenault and Janelle Baldwin of Tupper Lake.

The rangers ventured out onto the lake with rescue sleds for safety reasons.

Also helping save the moose was Tupper Lake’s Adam Baldwin, a ranger now assigned to Whitney Park. Adam is the son of Tina and the late Danny Baldwin of this village. Before joining the D.E.C. Adam was the event coordinator at the then Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce. He has helped find lost hunters and hikers numerous times in the years since joining the rangers several years ago.

With them was Ranger Matt Savarie.

According to the NYS D.E.C. web site, when the rangers arrived at the scene they spoke to DEC operations employees who told them a bystander had watched the moose walk out onto the ice and then fall through, about 200 feet from the town beach.

“Dressed in cold-water rescue gear Forest Rangers Nahor, Savarie and Baldwin went out onto the ice to begin rescuing the moose. Ranger Nahor began cutting a channel with his chainsaw while Lieutenant Robert Higgins cleared the ice blocks, creating a pathway for the moose to free itself. The three rangers then guided the moose to shallow water near the shore. Once free from the water, the moose made several attempts to get up before regaining its strength, standing up on the stable ice, and walking off into the woods.”

There was a brief account of the rescue on Facebook and pictures of the rangers in action posted by an unidentified Indian Lake resident. With the photos found on Larry Foy’s site, “Indian Lake NY In Pictures,” was the comment: “Moose cold water recovery by the NYS Forest Rangers and staff. A moose tried to cross Abanakee by the beach area. The rangers did an excellent job. Cutting an escape path through the ice and directing the bull moose to safety. Love the happy ending. Thanks to all the DEC and what they do!”

The story of what had to be a very nerve-wracking mission for the rangers rated the interest of the New York Times editors which published this story in recent days:

By Adeel Hassan

New York Times

So what do you do if you find a 1,000-pound moose stuck in a partly frozen lake in the center of a six-million-acre wilderness?

When rescuers arrived at Lake Abanakee in Northern New York, only the head of the moose was above the water. It had fallen through about 40 minutes earlier, and was spotted by an unidentified bystander in the vast forests of the Adirondacks.

The moose, a male that had shed its antlers, had walked about 200 feet onto the lake in Indian Lake, about 100 miles northwest of Albany, before falling into the frigid waters late on Thursday morning, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

The rescuers saw that the moose was unable to get out of the water. An airboat, a flat-bottomed watercraft with a propeller, was on its way to help.

“I guess there’s no training manual for getting moose out of the ice,” Lt. Robert Higgins, a state environmental conservation officer, said with a chuckle later in an interview posted on the agency’s website.

He narrated the rescue like it was all in a day’s work, as if anyone would quickly dress in cold-water gear and venture onto a frozen lake with sleds and heavy chain saws, as the team had done.

“We knew that time wasn’t on our side,” Evan Nahor, a forest ranger, said in the interview. “It was, ‘Do what we can with what we have.’”

The airboat had not yet arrived, so the rescuers walked onto the ice, using a spud bar, which is a long, metal tool with a chisel on one end, to find the most solid path to the moose.

“Every minute counts,” Lieutenant Higgins said of the rescue.

They weren’t worried, they said, about needing to be saved themselves if they fell through. Their dry suits would keep them warm and afloat and their safety ropes would be used to pull each other out.

Kneeling on sleds — to spread out their weight across the ice — they began using a chain saw to remove sections of ice and pushing them away to open a channel to the shore.

The video shows the crew attacking the ice surrounding the moose as it calmly treaded water — maybe a little too calmly.

“We tried poking it with a couple of different things, but it didn’t seem afraid of them,” said another forest ranger, Matt Savarie. “So, finally, we pushed the jet sleds that we had up close to it. And for whatever reason, it was scared of those. So once we got behind it, we were able to direct it.”

The bull moose, which can weigh around 1,000 pounds, paddled briskly through the narrow channel and made it to shore. By then it had been in the water for about two hours.

“It was really tired,” Lieutenant Higgins said. “It was shivering. It just didn’t have much energy left. We didn’t know if it was going to be able to stand up or not.”

It took about 15 minutes for the moose to find its footing and strength. “It tried a few times and eventually it stood up,” Lieutenant Higgins said.

Then it shook off the ice and took an easy stride on a different path, into the forest.”

The moose, later identified as a bull moose that had dropped its antlers, was reportedly in the frigid waters for approximately two hours.