A Wyoming hunter decided to save an elk rather than shoot one. He saw the pitiful animal tangled up in barbed wire and decided to help the creature out.
Speaking with Cowboy State Daily, hunter Mitchell Wolfe opened up about encountering the deer. He had been working in oil fields when he came across the animal on the side of the road. It had a leg tangled in barbed wire and was trapped.
"I thought, 'He's breathing. He's still alive,'" Wolfe told Cowboy State Daily. He spent the next 15 minutes trying to free the animal from the barbed wire. Freeing the animal, Wolfe realized that it didn't move.
Hunter Saves Elk
He continued along his way to work, but upon driving back by, he noticed that the elk was gone. Wolfe was happy that he could save the animal from its fate. "I'd like to think that anybody would have done the same thing I did" to save the elk, he said. "No animal deserves to die like that."
Despite being a hunter, Wolfe has a deep appreciation for animals and doesn't want to see them suffering.
"I drove up to the next ranch pullout and then turned back around for another look," he said. "He had probably been there struggling for about five hours, and was just completely exhausted."
No one else stopped to help the animal despite several cars coming up and down the road.
The deer was appreciative of being freed.
"He let out a big sigh. It's like he was relieved to be loose," Wolfe said. "I saw one of his ears flicking and he moved his right front leg. I thought, 'D—n, he might have a chance.'"
Wolfe said he prayed that the elk would be okay.
"I just said a prayer to the good Lord that he wouldn't be there the next day," he also said. "By God, he was gone."
Thanks to the hunter, the elk gets to live another day.
