I'm of two minds with this. On the one hand, wild animals should stay in the wild and nature should take its course, so I have no issue with penalties for people who take wild, uninjured animals from the forest. On the other hand, if he'd just left the calf it'd have soon become a meal for a black bear, and then have to deal with that on his conscience. Skage's account had him losing his job with an oil company for his actions, which if true does seem a bit harsh.
Source: CBC News
It's always nice to have company on a long road trip — but in this case, a Fort Nelson, B.C., man says he found himself the unexpected companion of a moose calf, who willingly hopped into the passenger seat of his truck to escape the jaws of a waiting black bear.
But Mark Skage said he was fired for the act. His employer, AFD Petroleum Inc., let him go for breaking wildlife protocols.
Skage told CBC News he was travelling north of Fort Nelson when he noticed the calf alone on the side of the road, with no mother in sight. After the calf almost got hit by a few cars, he decided to pull up to try and scare her off the side of the highway.
As he opened the car door, however, the calf trotted over and started trying to climb into his pickup truck.
"After the second time she tried to get in, I looked up across the road, I just happened to glance over there — and halfway across the ditch, maybe like 50 yards, there was a black bear standing there," Skage said.
So, looking at the bear and looking at the calf trying to climb into his pickup truck, Skage made the decision to save the baby moose. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, those bears account for about 40% of moose calves killed. And as an outdoorsman, he knew what he was doing was illegal, but he rationalized it this way:
"It wasn't just one moose calf that God saved. It was a whole bunch … She's gonna grow up and have lots of babies, and her babies will have babies. I think it's a positive. I believe that in my heart."
His employer felt differently, however, and as his video went viral they terminated his employment. AFD Petroleum said Skage's actions breached the company's protocols around interactions with wildlife.
"Instead of reporting the situation to a conservation officer and allowing the authorities to handle the rescue and relocation of the moose, the individual made the independent decision to transport an uninjured moose calf, a wild animal, in the front seat of his company vehicle for many hours," AFD Petroleum president Dale Reimer said in an emailed statement.
"This not only put the employee and other road users at risk but also potentially caused distress and harm to the moose."
