Injured Moose Calf Reunited with Mom!

Like many other women living in Alaska, Natalie Vaz seems to do it all! On top of being an owner/operator of Salmon River Sportfishing, where she guides clients on adventures of a lifetime catching wild Alaskan salmon, she can now add 'Moose Calf Rescuer' to her Alaskan resume!

While floating the Salmon River near Gustavus, Alaska, Natalie came upon a pretty unique situation that even most lifelong Alaskans don't encounter.

In a Facebook post, Natalie says:

'Went for a paddle with a moose last night...

For the past two days a momma moose was hanging out along the trail just above where the calf is shown laying down. I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t moving to a new spot to graze.

Yesterday evening as I paddled down the river with some clients on a fishing trip, I spotted this lil calf. It now made sense why the momma was hanging around.

I realized the calf likely fell down the cliff and couldn’t get back up and couldn’t swim across to the other side (we tried). With the unhappy momma glaring over the top of the hill at us we someone managed to get the calf in my kayak and paddled it across the river where the mom could reach it.

We don’t think she was able to see that we had her baby in our boat because at this point she was standing directly across the river from us in a perfect position to charge. She then went back into the trees and we placed the calf in some reeds along the river. As of 5:30 this morning there were fresh momma and baby moose tracks right by where we left the calf. A happy ending and quite the adventurous night! Only in Alaska!'

After reuniting the calf with its mother, Natalie reports that it does appear that it may have sustained an injury to one of its rear legs, but the mother is doing a great job looking over her new baby.