For two years, a moose lived with a tire around its neck; to get rid of the problem, officials had to cut off its antlers. The animal does not appear to have suffered any visible injury from the weight of the rubber.
For two years, an elk has lived with a tire around its neck in Colorado
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials had been watching for years as the elk, only four and a half years old, wandered through the park’s wildlife with a tire pendant around its neck.
The last three attempts to free him were futile. At least until Saturday, October 9, when the elk had to pay the highest bill: its antlers.
The animal, which weighed 270 kilos, had been wandering around with the rubber around its neck for a couple of years and had been spotted several times by park rescuers.
On Saturday, during a new encounter near Denver, they managed to capture and help him. The first difficulty, however, was figuring out how to free it, as the steel present in the tire made it impossible to cut the tire without risking the animal’s life.
The solution, to bring it back to life, was to cut off its horns, which, also counting the weight of the tire, freed it of about 16 kg of extra weight. This is no small loss.
The saga of the bull elk with a tire around its neck is over. Thanks to the residents just south of Pine Junction on CR 126 for reporting its location, wildlife officers were able to free it of that tire Saturday.
Story: https://t.co/WHfkfPuAck
📸’s courtesy of Pat Hemstreet pic.twitter.com/OcnceuZrpk
— CPW NE Region (@CPW_NE) October 11, 2021
In fact, the antlers are indispensable for the elk during this period of the year to allow it to mate before the arrival of winter, and before it loses them naturally in view of the spring rebirth. Moreover, the presence of the rubber had had no obvious effect on the health of the animal, which, to everyone’s surprise, had not suffered any visible wounds on its neck.
