A Maine couple out fishing came across a scene worthy of a nature documentary: a baby moose running for its life with a large black bear in pursuit.

Elvia and Todd Malcolm were in Telos Township, Maine, about an hour from their home in Lincoln, when they saw a female moose at the edge of a wooded area before turning down a side street.

“I told Elvia, ‘Take your phone because you’ll have a chance to take a photo of a moose,’” Todd Malcolm told The Associated Press.

They parked their truck to observe the moose and noticed that it seemed agitated and was grunting as if calling for a calf.

Suddenly the calf and the bear ran out of the trees and headed straight for them. Todd Malcolm said he had no doubt the bear would get the calf and decided not to let nature take its course that day.

“I put the truck in drive and just hit the gas,” he said, explaining that he wasn’t trying to hurt the bear, he was just trying to put the truck between the bear and the calf. “I knew what I had to do and I just did it.”

The bear jumped aside and took off, Todd Malcolm said, “Boom, he’s gone, right in the woods.”

His wife was happy and relieved that they could intervene.

“My heart was racing because I didn’t want to see the bear catch the calf,” she said. “As soon as the calf passed the truck and we were able to get the bear to give up the chase, I looked down the road and saw they were together, the mother and calf.”

Once the excitement was over, Elvia Malcolm started looking at the photos on her phone and was surprised to see some clear action shots of the chase.

“I really thought I was probably a bug on the windshield when I started looking at them,” he said. “I got them out through the front windshield of the truck. I wasn’t out of the truck. There was no way I was going to get out of the truck.”

After making sure the mother moose and her calf were reunited and safe, the Malcolms continued to their fishing spot, where they caught some brook trout.