Watch: Rutting Bull Moose runs over Deer Hunter during a scouting trip

Tuesday morning would be a quiet trip to the woods for Caleb Lewis. The 27-year-old from Maine’s northernmost Aroostook County had to set up some wildlife cameras and scout some areas, and he’s always on the lookout for sheds. Lewis and his wife own an antler dog chew business together.

But things took a turn when Lewis found himself in the middle of a rutting moose action, with three nearby bulls growling loudly and competing for a cow. It was only when Lewis turned around and realized one of the bulls was approaching him that he took out his phone to record the encounter.

That footage now lives on Lewis’s Instagramwhere it received 2.4 million views in just a few days.

“I got out of my truck and saw a bunch of elk rubbing the alders,” Lewis said Outdoor living. “It’s rutting season, so of course they’ll be active.”

Lewis was headed to a swamp about half a mile from his truck. He worked through the forest and dropped off a ridge into the swampy area. He started planning out his camera setup when, out of nowhere, a cow moose started roaring nearby.

“She was pretty close and getting closer,” Lewis said.

Soon a chorus of bullgrunts began to respond to each roar. Lewis listened closely and discovered at least three bulls with unique vocalizations – and they all came his way.

Then a bull growled right next to him. Lewis turned and saw the bull about 50 yards away, bobbing its head from side to side and moving toward him through the thin trees. The waving antlers were a clear sign that the bull was excited.

“Then I took out my camera and started recording,” says Lewis. “He started walking slowly towards me and raked some bushes, probably 30 meters away from me. There weren’t many trees to hide behind. It all happened so quickly that I was a bit overwhelmed. He was walking with the wind, and he must have smelled me. But he didn’t care. When they’re in such a rut, they just don’t care.”

The bull began walking parallel to Lewis, looking at him in what commentators on the video called “bombastic side eye.” Then he approached Lewis head-on, still swinging his head from side to side and hitting his big paddles against trees.

Lewis realized how precarious his situation was, but he also experienced more than one encounter with a moose. His favorite strategy is simply to talk to them; Usually moose don’t want anything to do with people and are startled by the sound of his voice.

“But I became too confident that by talking I would scare him,” Lewis says. “This guy was so excited, he just wasn’t even phased. His eyes bulged when I told him he was close enough. After I say that three times, he starts swinging his head back and forth again like he doesn’t care, he just thinks I’m a bull again. Then I took three steps back and he attacked me.”

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Lewis turned around and instinctively reached back. One of the moose’s teeth cut into his hand. Lewis took two more steps and before he knew it, he was sliding across the forest floor. The moose had used a paddle to knock Lewis down, not so much by hitting him as by shoving him.

Lewis continued to yell at the bull throughout the ordeal, eventually realizing that Lewis was human and not just another drag-crazed competitor. After pushing Lewis to the ground, the moose turned and ran away. Lewis estimates he slid about six feet. He sat on the ground for a moment and collected himself. He was bruised, but not bleeding and there were no broken bones.

“I sat there in the mud and called my wife to tell her I had just been run over by a moose. She wasn’t happy,” Lewis said. “But while I was on the phone, that cow was still behind me, and the two other bulls were still growling at her and circling her. They didn’t even care that I was on the phone just yelling at the other bull. So I hung up and went back to the truck.

“Needless to say, I didn’t leave the cameras up.”



Katie Hill