Video: Oregon Wildlife Biologists Rescue Bull Elk Entangled in Fence
OutdoorHub Reporters 09.21.17
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials were faced with a tough decision when they discovered a bull elk entangled in a fence near Sandy, Oregon.
As you can see in the video below, the elk got himself into quite a big mess, and officers were forced to deploy tranquilizers in order to help free him. It’s not at all uncommon for bull elk to become entangled in fences, ropes, even basketball hoops can be a hazard for those huge antlers.
The somber part of this story comes with the difficult decision ODFW biologists were forced to make in a time-sensitive situation.
See, with time not exactly on their side (the tranquilizer used to sedate the animal is designed to wear off quickly) biologists decided that removing the elk’s antlers was the best option they had to save its life.
The ODFW has met some opposition with their handling of the situation in comments on their Facebook post, but without being there and dealing with everything firsthand, it’s tough to say there was another way of going about this rescue.
We say good work to those involved, and we’re confident this bull will recover and his antlers will grow back just fine next season.
