A couple from Maine on their way to spend a day of fishing came across a scene worthy of a nature documentary: A baby moose desperately ran for his life as a large black bear chased him.
Elvia and Todd Malcolm They were in Telos Township, Maine, about an hour from their home in Lincoln, when they saw a female moose at the edge of a wooded area before it turned onto a secondary road.
“I told Elvia, ‘Take out your phone because you’re going to have a chance to take a photo of a moose.’”Todd Malcolm told The Associated Press.
They parked their truck to observe the moose and noticed that it seemed restless and made growling noises, as if it were calling for its calf.
Suddenly, the calf and the bear came running out of the trees directly toward them. Todd Malcolm said he had no doubt the bear would get to the calf and decided he wasn’t going to let nature take its course that day.
“I put the truck in drive and just hit the gas,” he explained. “I wasn’t trying to hurt the bear; I just wanted to put the truck between the bear and the calf. I knew what I had to do and I just did it.”.
The bear jumped to the side and ran away at full speed. “Boom! He immediately disappeared into the woods,” Todd Malcolm said.
His wife was happy and relieved that they had been able to intervene.
“My heart was racing because I didn’t want to watch the bear catch the baby,” she said. “As soon as the baby passed the truck and we got the bear to give up the chase, I looked down the road and saw that they were together again: the mother and the baby.”
When all the excitement was over, Elvia Malcolm began reviewing the photographs on her phone and was surprised to discover that she had captured several very clear images of the chase.
“When I started seeing them, I thought I had probably just photographed some insect on the windshield,” he said. “I took the photos through the front windshield of the truck. I was not outside the vehicle. There was no way I was going to get out of the truck.”
After ensuring that the mother moose and her calf were reunited and safe, the Malcolms continued to their fishing spot, where they managed to catch several brook trout.
This story was translated from English to Spanish with an artificial intelligence tool and was reviewed by an editor before publication.