A little town in northern Norway has a gruesome new attraction after a moose became trapped in a lake and froze solid. Locals from Furnes in Valnesfjord, Nordland said the moose appeared to be fighting its way out of the icy water when it died.
Inger Sjøberg told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) she was out skating with her partner when she made the startling discovery. “We could see that he’d kicked for a long while before he’d given up,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, and the moose has now become an attraction for residents.” The pictures were published on NRK’s website (external link, in Norwegian).
Moose researcher Christer Moe Rolandsen at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Norsk institutt for naturforskning) said it’s not unusual for the beasts to venture out onto the ice. While moose are good swimmers and tolerate the cold well, Rolandsen said they can can die of exhaustion if they flounder for too long.
“So it’s likely not the swimming ability but the conditions that it depends on,” he explained. “If they don’t have anything underneath to kick up off, or if it’s so deep it can’t reach the bottom, then they can have problems.”
newsinenglish.no staff
