A group of snowmobilers came to the unlikely rescue of a young female moose after discovering her buried nearly completely in snow during a ride in New Hampshire.
Mike Dion and his companions were heading back after a morning of riding through drifts reaching 4 to 5 feet high when they stumbled upon the stranded animal. Speaking to WMUR news, Dion described finding the moose submerged up to her neck, with only her snout and the top of her mane visible above the snow, her eyes wide with panic.
With no cell service in the area, contacting authorities wasn’t an option.
“Everyone looks at their cellphone, no service,” Dion said. “We couldn’t call Fish and Game, because that was our first thought.”
“Well, if we don’t do nothing,” Dion remembers thinking, “the moose probably isn’t going to survive.”
The group approached carefully and found the moose worn out but surprisingly composed. She had clearly struggled to free herself and failed, and the snowmobilers weren’t even sure whether her hooves were touching solid ground beneath the snow. They dropped to their hands and knees and spent roughly 20 minutes carefully digging her out.
“Eventually, we got her up and got her going, and she seemed to be all in good health,” Dion said. “I think she was happy. She wasn’t aggressive or too nasty with us. That’s what we were worried about at first.”
Once she was free, the group lingered for another ten minutes or so to make sure she had her footing before heading home.
A New Hampshire Fish and Game Department official later commented to WMUR that moose can be extremely dangerous when they feel cornered, frightened, or threatened. Anyone who encounters a moose in distress should contact the department rather than intervening directly, she advised.
The rescue echoes a similar incident covered in 2024, in which snowmobilers in Anchorage worked to free a moose that had fallen into a frozen creek and become encased in ice — an effort that took several hours before the animal could finally be freed.
