FARGO — It was already shaping up to be a great Christmas for Casey and Zachary Follingstad. They got to celebrate with their brother for the first time in years.
“He lived in Galveston, Texas, for a few years, but he’s back for the holidays for the first time this year, which is really great,” older brother Casey said.
Then, a startling surprise Christmas morning in downtown Fargo after opening up the presents. A moose running down the road!
Zachary, 10, kept a level head.
“I was like, calm and chill, and I told my mom about it, and said, ‘Hey, there’s a moose,'” Zachary explained. “And then all them just started freaking out, like, What’s going on?'”
“My initial reaction was to call my girlfriend and to be like, ‘Hey, check this out, I saw this moose,'” Casey joked. “My mom started yelling ‘Oh my gosh, it jumped a fence. The fence was like … the size of you guys.’ And I was like, ‘Holy, this thing is huge.'”
Huge and fast. The moose got around. Along with the spotting in downtown Fargo, videos posted to Facebook show the moose in Moorhead. WDAY News photojournalist Abby Makay went out to find it. She thought it was a wild goose chase.
But just when she was ready to give up, she spotted it in Dilworth, Minn., lying down near a tree line.
“I literally said, ‘No way!’ I was shocked,” Makay said. “I couldn’t believe that I found it. I should be a detective.”
It’s safe to say, Abby, Casey, and Zachary all got a pretty good story to tell for this holiday.
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” Casey said.
The Fargo Police Department said they received several calls about the moose, but it hadn’t threatened anyone. Meanwhile, the Moorhead Police Department say they worked with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to make sure the public remained safe throughout the moose’s journey across the metro.
Todd Froberg, a big game coordinator with the DNR, said sightings like the one on Christmas Day are extremely rare, but more common once the snow gets deeper, as animals look for easier paths to cross.
Froberg said if you do come into contact with big game, keep a safe distance from the animal.
“Let the moose be a moose and let it go through naturally,” Froberg said. “If there is a recurring situation where it’s maybe leaving a risk to the public, that’s when I think we should be notified.”
Tierney Stewart is a reporter and producer at WDAY. Originally from the Minneapolis area, she decided to stay in Fargo a while longer after graduating from Concordia College in 2024. She has a B.A. degree in studio art and communication studies with two emphasis in gender communication and journalism. While newer to the TV news world, she wrote for the school paper in college, as well as news releases for Concordia’s website. She considers herself a jack-of-all-trades and has found herself in a variety of roles, but has a passion for telling stories in all kinds of formats.