New Brunswick couple helps rescue young moose on ice

Jolyne Lavoie spends most of her weekends in her side-by-side exploring New Brunswick with her husband Claude.

Typically, she rides shotgun and keeps an eye on everything that nature has to offer, but even after a lifetime in the outdoors, last Sunday brought a brand new experience when she spotted a young moose out on the ice.

“She wasn’t making any noise or anything like that, she was very quiet, a young moose,” she said.

Lavoie first spotted the moose when they were crossing a bridge and at first they were worried her legs might be broken.

“When we got [out] and looked down, we could tell that she was just sprawled out on the river, on the ice and couldn’t move so we knew her legs were fine then at that point, so it was just trying to figure out what was the next step,” Lavoie said.

Luckily, a few minutes later, two peace officers joined the couple and they worked together to help get the moose back onto the bank using a ratchet strap the Lavoie’s had in their side-by-side.

“At first, we were wondering about the ice thickness, but then my husband said, ‘Well, that animal has to be at least 400 pounds,’ so he says, ‘I can go on the ice,’ and asked the peace officer to just basically hang onto the strap basically, so that if something, like the ice was to break, he could pull him back to the bank,” said Lavoie.

She says the entire rescue mission only took about 30-to-40 minutes.

“Thankfully, the peace officers were not far and we rarely run into them,” she said. “I don’t know, it was just like a whole situation where everything was falling into place. It was the best case scenario.”

Since posting video of the recovery on Facebook, the post has received more than 100 comments, 400 reactions and nearly 300 shares as of Monday evening.

Lavoie knows it’s an experience she won’t forget.

“My husband, he’s not a hunter at all, but for him he’s like, ‘Oh my God,’ because the moose was up to his shoulders and it was a very young moose, from the spring, but just to pet her and stuff was pretty amazing,” she said.

“I grew up in the country, so I see those animals a lot and often enough, but it was still surreal to see one stranded on the ice and just to say that we were able to get it onto […] the bank and kind of give it a little pet and she be on her way, it was good.” 

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