Sask. Man fights starving moose with fists, shovel and bullets to save his mother

The wind chill felt like -40 in Bienfette, Sask., when Angie Tufnell went out to start her car. It was just like any other day, until it wasn’t.

“I heard her screaming,” said her son, Shawn Tufnell. “I went running down the stairs… I saw a moose standing on top of it.”

A hungry and cold moose was sitting in front of the house, near the warmth of the dryer vent. It didn’t take long for Angie to attack.

A chaotic struggle ensues as Shawn decides to face the beast literally.

“My first instinct — which I didn’t think too well about — was I went out and punched him straight in the face,” Shawn told CBC. 306.

The blow tore the animal’s lip, but it did not repel him. Moose pounced, narrowly missing Shawn’s face. He picked up a shovel and hit the animal three times, but the moose kept coming.

As he went back into the house, Moose followed him, pushing his front shoulders against the door frame.

“He was right on the floor of the house… trying to grab me,” Shawn said.

When the animal turned back towards its mother, who was still pressed to the frozen ground, Shawn grabbed its ears and nose. He held the animal in a headlock, held its jaws to his stomach to avoid being bitten, and used the door frame as a shield against its hooves.

“I didn’t care what it was doing to me,” he said. “All I was thinking was to blind him so he couldn’t see her anymore.”

survival mode

The ordeal only ended when his mother’s boyfriend finally arrived with a .22-caliber rifle. Shawn picked up the gun and fired several shots to kill the animal.

He first shot the moose in the eye to prevent it from targeting his mother. Then he reloaded.

“I think it took about 15 pills, give or take. I finally knocked him down,” Shawn said.

A post-mortem examination by the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative later confirmed that the moose died from “multiple gunshot wounds to the head”, with one wound ultimately penetrating the brain.

The examination confirmed Shawn’s suspicions that the moose was weak. The report found that the animal had “no remaining fat reserves.”

It was not sick with rabies or chronic wasting disease; It was simply starving and looking for warmth.

“He was hungry and starving,” Shawn said. “He was in a position to survive.”

Moose expert and University of Saskatchewan professor Ryan Brook says the attack is shocking, but the behavior is understandable. In extreme cold, moose seek any thermal cover they can find.

“Moose are northern-adapted, but -50 is extreme for anything,” Brooks said. “They’re unpredictable. They can go from looking calm to being active in a second.”

a different scenario

The Ministry of Community Safety said in a statement that the public should keep their distance from wildlife, but Brooke says that “distance” is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Over the past 50 years, moose have expanded into Saskatchewan’s agricultural sector.

“Everybody in Saskatchewan is in moose habitat,” Brooks said.

As far as the Tufnells are concerned, the encounter left physical and emotional scars.

Angie is recovering from a deep gash on her leg where a moose stepped on her shin. Shawn escaped with a broken rib and a large “goose egg” on his head, which he did not realize until the adrenaline wore off hours later.

“I’m not happy with killing moose,” he said.

“But we’re all alive…it just seemed like it had to be done.”