Elk rescued from frozen water at Palisades

About 40 people helped get a dozen elk out of water in the Palisades around 8 a.m. Friday morning.

Dusty Jones of Alpine, Wyoming tells Local News 8 and Eyewitness News 3 he was driving to work when he saw people on the ice with about 10 head of elk in the water.

They had a large stick, a chain saw and cut a path in the ice for the elk.

The water was about eight to 10 feet deep. There is usually no water in that area because it is usually drained out.

The people on the ice lassoed a couple of the calf’s to pull them out of the water first.

The adult elk weren’t following the ice path created, so they were lassoed and pulled out of the water.

The rescue took about 40 minutes.

Jones says there were only 3 people helping get the elk out of the water before he got there.

He says, “This is a whole community rescue effort. All of us are hunters. We’re not monsters. It was kind of dicey.”