Mountain Elk Dies After Leaping Onto Helicopter That Almost Captured It

A helicopter that was trying to capture an elk in Utah was brought down when the four-legged creature leapt on it Monday, killing itself in the process.

Jared Rigby of the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office said the helicopter was flying 10 feet (3 meters) above ground in Currant Creek Reservoir, which is about 85 miles southeast of Salt Lake City — a mountainous part of the state. The helicopter was tracking a mountain elk at the time, and attempting to drop a net on it in order to immobilize it enough to put a tracking collar on it, USA Today reported.

After attempting to capture the animal by launching a net failed, the helicopter pilot tried slowing down the aircraft so that one of the crew members could jump down and manually restrain the elk by hobbling it.

However, when the helicopter slowed down, the elk collided with the rotor, bringing down the aircraft in the process.

“The Australian flight crew was in the process of netting a cow elk, which jumped and hit the tail rotor of the helicopter,” according to a statement from Wasatch County Search & Rescue, AJC reported.

“This almost severed the tail rotor and ended the flight of this chopper," it said.

Officials onboard the helicopter sustained minor injuries. The elk, on the other hand, was not that lucky. The impact of the crash caused the animal to succumb to its injuries later on the same day.

“As for the chopper, not so good,” the statement added. “Not something you see every day when an elk brings down a chopper.”

The helicopter incurred damages on its tail rotor, right skid and underside. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources had contracted the helicopter to capture and sedate the elk and fix a tracking collar on it to research its movements in the area.

The state captured 1,300 elks each winter in order to study their migration paths and determine their survival rate. Putting tracking collars on them was the most convenient way of doing so.

According to Mark Hadley with the state Division of Wildlife Resources, helicopters were frequently used by authorities to monitor remote wildlife in Utah and instances where the target had overpowered them were unheard of.

Although it is entirely possible that the incident was a fluke accident, state officials said they will be reviewing it regardless, to determine whether it happened due to some fault on the crew’s part.

A number of environment protection groups have raised a hue and cry over the usage of helicopters to capture and study wildlife. The Utah government is planning to contract helicopters to study mountain goats next — a plan that was vehemently opposed by Wilderness Watch, an environment protection group, which called it “unnecessary intrusion into some of our most treasured lands.”