A couple of local farmers out of Kenai got their 15 minutes of fame last week after they posted a video online of a curious moose inspecting their doorbell camera.
Austin and Lisa Hansen, owners of Hansen Heritage Homestead in Kenai, posted the video on their farm’s Facebook page on the night of Nov. 29, which shows a moose sniffing at their doorbell — even managing to ring it once — before being chased off by the barks of the Hansens’ dog, Roscoe.
The next day, Lisa said, they started getting contacted by news outlets all over the world, including MSN and The Daily Mail, asking if they could share the video with their audience. Lisa also said that Vivint, the company that makes the doorbell camera used by the Hansens, even reached out hoping to use the video as promotional material.
“It was just one of those silly videos that we thought our friends and family would get a kick out of,” Austin told the Clarion Saturday. “Well, one thing led to another and it kind of turned into what it is now.”
“They were saying, ‘Hey this video is hilarious, how can we share this story?’ and I basically looked at my husband and said ‘I think our moose video is going viral,’” Lisa said.
For many Alaskans, a moose sighting on the front lawn is nothing to write home about, so the Hansens have enjoyed the reactions of people from around the world who don’t get to see something like that every day.
The Hansens could only speculate why the moose was so interested in their doorbell, but Lisa said that the timing made it extra suspicious.
“We were sitting in the living room watching scary movies as sort of a last hurrah for Halloween, when we heard this heavy crunching outside the window,” Austin said. “And this is as we’re watching “The Purge,” mind you, so that kind of struck us as a little unnerving. And then the doorbell alerts us that someone’s there, so we go look at the monitor and we see the moose looking back at us.”
“I think the moose was out to get us, personally,” Lisa joked.
Lisa said that they are still getting calls from outlets around the world about the video, and while searching for coverage of the video on Friday she saw that it had even been featured on a Japanese news website.
“Everyone loves a little bit of a limelight,” Lisa said. “Anyone who says they don’t is lying. And the fact that our small town of Kenai, Alaska, and our homestead is getting some recognition, I think that’s really special.”
Reach reporter Brian Mazurek at bmazurek@peninsulaclarion.com.
