A couple of weeks ago, Sunday marked the end of the hunting season in Montana. Instead of hunters bragging about what they bagged, social media was abuzz with news about four stranded elk in a pond near Bozeman.
The folks of Montana, because of its vast spaces, live in harmony with the many wildlife that surrounds them. They are also cognizant that winter is a harsh season for wildlife and have to accept that some of those creatures will not make it through to spring. It is a way of life in Montana, and the helpless elk stuck in the ice on Sunday could be considered as nature taking its course.
But the people who live there did not automatically accept a death sentence for the four creatures.
The background of the story is that a small herd of elk somehow fell through the thin ice and were trapped in only four feet of water. Since the ice was so thin and the elk so heavy, they were unable to extricate themselves, and there they stayed.
Local law enforcement and Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks attempted to rescue the elk with little effect. They couldn’t go out in the water and lead them to safety because it wasn’t safe for them. Then they tried using ice melt, hoping it would create a path through the ice for the elk to reach the shore. That strategy didn’t work either. The last plan suggested using rubber bullets, hoping it would encourage them to move, but it was another failure. Law enforcement and Rangers were out of ideas.
By this time, a group of bystanders from the area had begun to form and had witnessed that nothing seemed to help the elk reach freedom.
That changed when an unnamed person in the crowd leaped into action. This person could have let the opportunity pass and accepted the deadly fate these animals faced, not by a hunter’s bullet but from the harshness of nature.
But this person did not let it pass, and what you can conclude is that he had a moral compass and a virtuous heart. What we know about the unnamed person is that he is a resident and offered to use his privately owned helicopter to aid in the rescue.
There is no playbook for this kind of rescue. After analyzing the situation, the helicopter took off and approached the pond. Remarkably, the witnesses said the elk did not act frenziedly toward the aircraft above them. Usually, wild animals would behave differently, but for some reason, the elk didn’t act that way.
Then the pilot lowered his craft to break the ice around the animals. The first success was achieved. Next, he ascended and used the aircraft to herd them to the shore. All four elk appeared to follow the pilot’s intention and began leaving the water from the newly created open space.
But leaving the ice water was only part of their rescue. They then had to jump one fence on the shoreline, which surprised the officers. After leaping over another wall nearby, the elk were finally free. Four elk, free from hunters, hopefully, will make it through the winter.
During the season of Advent, this story is uplifting because people worked together to save God’s creatures, rather than choosing not to get involved. What a lesson for all of us. There are numerous opportunities for us to do good all the time, and too often we have an alleged good reason not to. The pilot didn’t follow the all-too-often refrain of minding his own business. More than just saving God’s creatures, this story is heartwarming because it shows that many good people in the world do not shy away from making a bad situation better. Count yourself in the group who will give of themselves when the time and circumstances dictate.