This kindhearted man did everything he could to help this baby moose find his mom!
In May 2018, an Estonian soldier named Erich Jyri Prikko was participating in military exercises in a forest near Lake Võrtsjärv. At one point, Prikko walked alone into the forest, searching for an ‘alternative bathroom.’ But then a different sort of call of nature gripped him.
As Prikko walked through the forest, he heard a strange sound.
“I heard some funny voices that reminded me of a cat or a small baby,” Prikko told. “I noticed some kind of a cute animal walking towards me. At first, he reminded me of a dog, but pretty quickly I realized it was a small baby moose trying to tell me something.”
The moose calf was there all alone. Not wanting to add to the animal’s distress, Prikko decided to sit down in hopes the baby moose would wander back toward his mother, wherever she might be. But instead, this happened.
“He slowly walked towards me,” Prikko said. “He was quite shy at first, but he finally decided that I seemed to be trustworthy and came very close to me.”
The moose started nuzzling with Prikko.
“He even tried to find something under my armpit,” Prikko said. “He might have thought that I have mammary glands.”
Clearly, the moose could tell Prikko was a friend!
Prikko could not fulfill the request, of course, but the hungry calf nevertheless seemed comforted by his gentle presence alone. It was then that Prikko decided to help in another way.
“I called our veterinary office and let them know what happened,” Prikko said. “I wanted to do more for the small calf and wanted to ask what should I do.”
He called the Estonian army’s veterinarian’s office, and they told him the best thing to do was to bring the moose back to where Prikko found him. Then, he should leave the moose alone and monitor the situation from afar.
It was difficult to leave the calf there all alone — but the move paid off.
“We noticed very fresh big moose footprints that indicated that the small calf had been rescued by his mother,” Prikko said.
In the morning, Prikko went back to the forest. The little baby moose was gone with mom.