"I keel you!"
“Apparently this little trail is one everyone in the neighborhood likes to walk on,” said Aaron Berg, a warden sergeant with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
The lush area near the river had also attracted a young moose that Berg believes was getting tired of being barked at and chased by neighborhood dogs.
The couple’s dog was fixated on another dog running up and down a fence line as they neared the spot where the moose was standing.
“The kid looked up and saw the moose kind of moving toward them,” Berg said. “He went up and grabbed his dog and yanked it back. When he looked up, the moose continued to advance.”
The young man’s dog was still barking at the dog on the other side of the fence when the man grabbed it one more time and yelled.
About that time, the dog looked up and saw the moose coming its way. The dog immediately ran back down the trail to the man’s girlfriend.
“By this time, the moose had just had it,” Berg said. “It started picking up speed.”
The man was backing down the trail when his feet caught on some cottonwood branches or roots. As he was falling backwards, he drew his 9mm pistol.
“He told me he didn’t remember discharging the pistol,” Berg said. “He shot a whole bunch of times. One shot hit it in the front of the neck, piercing its jugular and esophagus. The moose started to turn and he was still squeezing off shots. He hit it in the side.”
The moose walked off and died about 100 feet away.
The couple called and reported the encounter.
After he looked at the moose tracks and found the empty brass shell casings, Berg said he determined the man had acted in self-defense.
“He felt horrible,” Berg said. “He didn’t want to have to do that.”
Berg said the moose was about seven feet away when the man opened fire. Just from its tracks, Berg said he could see it was in a full-on charge.
If the man had not been carrying a pistol, he would have likely been hurt badly, if not killed, Berg said.
The moral of the story? Better to have a so called mouse gun, than no gun at all. I wonder what ammo he had in there?
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