On Wednesday morning a bull moose wandered into Hellroaring Skate Park in Red Lodge, Montana, and dropped straight into the halfpipe. The concrete walls were too steep and too slick for the big guy to climb out, so he was stuck — in a skate bowl, in a small town, with a crowd forming on the rim.
Wildlife officers, local police, and the county sheriff improvised a plan: surround the bowl so he could not hurt himself, shake a couple of tied-together ratchet straps to coax him toward a narrow opening, and lay down a giant rubber mat they hoped he would step onto so they could haul him up. The crowd clapped — not to cheer, but to keep the confused moose in the middle of the pit and away from the walls.
A little after 2 p.m. they tranquilized him, strapped him into a harness, and about a dozen people carried the sleeping bull moose out of the bowl, onto a mat, and into a waiting trailer. Then they drove him out of town, woke him up, and let him go. He was safe and uninjured after his five-hour session — and, by all accounts, entirely unimpressed by extreme sports.