Canadian trucker Hunter Berto, who drives all around North America, was driving down the highway when he saw a critically injured moose trying to drag itself off the road. Other motorists were running over the injured animal’s hind legs before Berto arrived on the scene.
“I was between Thunder Bay and Upsala,” said the 24-year-old trucker who has been working with Big Freight Systems Inc. of Steinbach, Man, since September.
“The truck in front of me hit his brakes,” Berto told SooToday in an interview.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a moose pulling itself off the highway, with its front legs.”
“It couldn’t move its back legs at all. It was right on the edge of the highway. Once it got to the snow bank, it couldn’t get past that.”
“I hit the brakes, stopped, and called the police.”
He then popped on the truck’s lights so passing vehicles would slow down. Next, he stepped down from the cab to see how he could help the animal.
“I backed up and pulled [the moose’s] legs off the highway because people were actually running over its legs.”
After getting the moose off the road, he sat himself down in the snow next to the animal and attempted to comfort it until police arrived.
“I just sat in the snowbank with it. It let me get right up to it. I was petting it and it put its head right on my lap.”
“I just sat there until the police showed up and they were able to put it down.”
“MNR [Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry] were not far behind to take it away.”
Those who know Berto best will tell you the 24-year-old trucker has a unique gift for animals and birds since childhood. As his father tells it, he was always approaching animals without fear from his earliest years.
And therein lies the key to his unique connection as Berto would tell it. According to the trucker, the difference is fear.
“They don’t really scare me,” he says. “They’re more scared of us than we are of them.”
“I was raised in Havilland, raised to not be afraid of animals, because growing up out there, there were animals all around and you had to learn to just live with them.”
“And doing this job, a lot of my friends have never even seen a moose, and I’m constantly seeing them everywhere.”
“Just show comfort and relate to an animal when you want to get close to it.”
“But don’t show fear. Don’t show aggression.”
“Just try to relate to it, like we’re all just here.”
Berto has a long history of interacting and even talking to animals.
So, what did he say to the moose dying in his lap?
“I just kept saying: ‘It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. It’s okay to let go. You’re not alone.’ It was just looking at me in the eyes and that was it.”
Sources: One Green Planet, SooToday
