Wildlife officials and climbers have rescued a bull elk by lowering it down a cliff after the animal became entangled in a rope at a popular ice climbing area in south-western Colorado.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) officials said a group of ice climbers in Lake City encountered the distressed elk on Friday morning, and a CPW biologist darted the ungulate with a tranquiliser.
The expert also covered part of the elk’s head with a ski mask to protect its eyes during the rescue.
The animal was successfully retrieved from a tight spot (Colorado Parks and Wildlife via AP)
The team cut the rope away from the elk’s antlers, but then faced the problem of how to bring the 700lb animal down from the climbing wall.
At this point, the ice climbers who reported the stranded elk came to the rescue by helping state wildlife officers rig a system that used two ropes – one under the animal’s chest and another along its antlers – to lower it to the base of the route.
Once the elk was on more level ground, the CPW team reversed the effects of the tranquiliser, and about 12 minutes later the elk woke up and ran off down the snowy canyon.
Wildlife officials and climbers were confronted with an elk on a shelf (Colorado Parks and Wildlife via AP)
John Livingston, a spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said: “When we reverse that tranquiliser drug, it can take several minutes for the animal to regain full use of its body.
“Sometimes they will stand quickly but still be woozy on their feet, or sometimes it will take them a few attempts to get fully standing.”
He said the two-and-a-half-year-old elk became stuck the previous night and was discovered at dawn, fatigued and with a few minor scrapes from trying to break free. It took more than two hours to free the hapless animal.
Elk sometimes get their unwieldy antlers entangled in man-made hazards such as clothes lines, fencing and hammocks.