A B.C. man says he was "just trying to help" when he stepped in to free a young moose tangled in his wire fence.

But instead of running off, the animal returned the favour by "circling and attacking" him.

Marc Schoene says he was at his West Kelowna, B.C. home when his wife spotted a young moose walking along the fence near their yard.

Then, the neighbour's dog began to bark and the moose spooked.

It tried to leap over Schoene's fence, but its back leg caught in the wire and it fell to the ground.

He rushed over to check on the animal, and said it appeared uninjured but visibly upset.

"It was in distress," Schoene told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview from his home. "It was breathing really heavily. It was scared."

Not knowing how long it would take for a conservation officer to come help, Schoene says he sized up the moose and decided to step in himself.

The hunter and small-farm owner said he estimated the moose was about two years old, and stood about five feet tall.

"It was a little calf moose. It wasn't a full grown moose," he said. "So I just figured it wouldn't take me too long to cut him loose."

Schoene asked his neighbour for a pair of wire cutters. Then, he set his phone to video mode, placed it against a tree, and went to work freeing the animal.

A video of the rescue shows the moose frantically kicking its hind legs in an attempt to free itself, before Schoene calmly steps in to clip the wires.

It takes just seconds before the moose is freed, and bounds out of the camera's view.

At this point, Schoene says, the moose began to circle him.

"You're okay, you're okay," Schoene's voice calls out in the video. "Keep going!"

But instead of running off, the moose turns on Schoene. In the video, there's a blur as the man runs past the camera, fleeing from the animal.

Schoene said the moose ended up kicking him three or four times. He didn't suffer any serious injury, but he did walk away with some bruising.

Still, Schoene says he isn't holding a grudge.

"It's a fight or flight instinct from animals, and it went for the fight part," Schoene said. "It's not the moose's fault. That's a natural reaction."

Schoene posted the video on YouTube and the video has now amassed thousands of views.

He said he didn't expect the reaction, but that he's been happy to read positive feedback from viewers thanking him for helping the animal.

Schoene said this was the first he's seen a moose on his property, and that the young calf hasn't returned since the rescue.