Mighty moose found frozen in Alaskan stream after a fight to the death
The tragic beasts were likely to have been rutting over a female
TWO moose have been discovered frozen in battle and encased in ice near a remote village on Alaska's brutal western coast.
The tragic beasts still had their mighty antlers locked together and were likely to be fighting over a female when they became stuck.
Local teacher Bob Webster captured images of the massive animals poking through the ice as they laid on their sides with antlers apparently locked together.
He had taken a friend who recently moved to the village of Unalakleet for a walk near a frozen stream at Covenant Bible Camp, where Mr Webster volunteers as a camp steward.
"That's when we saw it," he said.
He initially thought it was just one moose that had been shot but when he got a closer look, he saw the second moose.
It took him a moment to realise what he was seeing, he said.
It was the end of moose rutting season, and the animals were likely fighting over a female moose.
Mr Webster speculated that one of the animals was wounded by the other animal's antlers, and perhaps died as their antlers were caught together, dragging the rival down with it.
";It was a very interesting experience," Mr Webster said of the discovery.
Jeff Erickson, student activities director of Bering Strait School District in Unalakleet, also captured the images when he went to check out the scene a couple of days later with Mr Webster.
Mr Erickson grew up in the area and has hunted for 50 years, but he said he had never seen anything like it "frozen in time".
"It was such a surreal sight ... so serene and quiet, but a stark vision of how brutally harsh life can be," he said.
Mr Webster, Mr Erickson and a few others went back later and removed the animals from about 20 centimetres of ice covering open water, recovering some of the spoiled meat for dog food and trapping bait.
They took the heads, which are still frozen and being kept for now in Mr Webster's yard. The plan is to clean them out for mounting as bleached skulls at the Bible camp.