In Bienfait, Saskatchewan, extreme wind chills dropped temperatures to feel like –40°C when Angie Tuffnell stepped outside to warm up her car. The routine moment turned life-threatening as a desperate moose attacked her.
The Sudden Assault
Angie’s son, Shawn Tuffnell, heard her screams and rushed downstairs. He found a starving moose looming over his mother, which had sought warmth near the house’s dryer vent. The weakened animal lunged at Angie, pinning her to the frozen ground.
Desperate Defense
Shawn confronted the moose directly. “My first instinct was to walk out and punch it right in the face,” Shawn recounted. The punch split the moose’s lip, but the animal charged again, nearly striking his face.
Grabbing a nearby shovel, Shawn struck the moose three times, yet it persisted. As he retreated inside, the moose forced its shoulders through the doorframe, entering the house. When it turned back toward Angie, Shawn seized its ears and nostrils, wrestling it into a headlock. He pinned its jaw against his stomach, using the doorframe to block its hooves.
“I didn’t care what it was doing to me,” Shawn said. “All I could think was getting him blind so he couldn’t see her anymore.”
Ending the Threat
The struggle ended when Angie’s boyfriend handed Shawn a .22-calibre rifle. Shawn fired the first shot into the moose’s eye to divert its attention from his mother, then reloaded and fired around 15 bullets total. “I finally dropped him,” he stated.
A post-mortem examination by wildlife health experts confirmed the moose died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head, including one penetrating the brain. The animal had no fat reserves, showing it was starving but free of diseases like rabies or chronic wasting disease. “He was hungry and starving,” Shawn observed. “He was in survival mode.”
Expert Analysis
Ryan Brook, a moose expert and professor at the University of Saskatchewan, explains the behavior aligns with harsh conditions. “Moose are northern-adapted, but –50 is extreme for anything,” Brook said. “They are unpredictable. They can go from appearing calm to charging in a second.”
Moose populations have expanded across Saskatchewan’s farmland over the past 50 years, placing them in closer proximity to humans. “Every person in Saskatchewan is in moose habitat,” Brook noted. Officials from the Ministry of Community Safety urge the public to maintain distance from wildlife.
Aftermath and Recovery
The family bears physical and emotional scars. Angie recovers from a deep wound on her calf inflicted by the moose’s hoof. Shawn sustained a cracked rib and a large lump on his head, unnoticed amid the adrenaline.
“I’m not happy about killing the moose,” Shawn admitted. “But we’re all alive … It seemed like it had to be done.”
