Susie Arnold spotted the moose when she arrived at Bell's Nursery on Sunday morning to meet a friend for coffee. The trapped moose was on a bike path beside Bell's, in South Anchorage on Specking Avenue. And the moose was agitated, she said.
The rope was caught initially on a wooden post. The moose worked it off the post, but became tangled in a nearby spruce tree, said Arnold, who watched the situation unfold more than an hour and a half. At one point, one of the moose's legs was caught by the rope.
Senior patrol officer Horace Snyder was dispatched to answer the moose call.
"When I got there, it was wrapped up in a spruce tree with the rope kind of tied around its antler," Snyder said. The moose thrashed around in frustration and fear, he said.
Sgt. Justin Doll, who was off duty, was at Bell's having coffee and came out to help. The officers found a long green landscaping pole and attached Snyder's pocketknife to one end with duct tape. Doll pulled his pickup close to give Snyder cover. The moose edged away from the truck, which tightened the rope. "I just reached over with the pole and actually cut the moose free. And it just ran away," Snyder said.
A crowd of people watched and snapped pictures.
"I was just thrilled that APD took the time to make the bike trail safe for pedestrians and that they took additional time to make sure that the moose was safe. It would have been easy to just shoot him," Arnold said.
Once the police officer arrived, it took just 10 minutes to figure out how to free the moose, she said.
"I was happy we were able to do that rather than have to put the moose down," Snyder said. "He wasn't injured and there wasn't any reason to kill it."
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