‘You can’t watch a movie!’: moment when a hungry baby moose walks into the theater of Alaska

A hungry moose has been caught on camera walking into a movie theater in Kenai, Alaska, before making off with a McDonald’s happy meal.

Kenai Cinemas employees were surprised when the animal entered the building last week and started rooting through the rubbish.

In a video posted to social media, an employee can be heard saying “he’s not leaving,” as the moose sticks its snout into an old box of happy meal.

The theater manager said he thought the animal had been lured in by the smell of popcorn.

It comes just weeks after a moose broke into the lobby of an Anchorage hospital through an automatic door and began eating some potted plants.

The animal burrows through the garbage before picking up a discarded McDonald’s happy meal

A video posted to social media shows the animal wandering in through the front door from the outside, with an employee saying ‘what do I do’ and repeating ‘no, no, no’.

The curious moose hesitantly walks into the theater, seems to sniff the air, and then starts rummaging through the garbage across the room.

The employee can be heard laughing and saying, ‘I can’t do anything. Go outside, that’s where you belong. You can’t watch a movie.’

Further footage shows workers leading the animal out, which still has the box of happy meals stuck to its snout.

So told theater manager Ricky Black Anchorage daily news that his first reaction was to laugh at the situation.

“She was behind the counter,” he said of the employee. “She wasn’t in immediate danger from the moose. And she says, “Stop laughing. This is serious.”

He said he thought the smell of popcorn had attracted the animal. The theater’s front door was open to let in some fresh air while the employee cleaned the popcorn machine, which gives off a lot of heat — and the distinctive popcorn smell, Black explains.

“It sure could smell that popcorn. It’s just a very common reaction for anything or anyone who enters the theaters,” he added.

Nick Fowler, a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told the outlet that this is the time of year when moose are most “nutritively limited.”

“I don’t know if a Happy Meal is good for a moose or not. However, I can confidently say it’s not in his natural diet,” Fowler said.

He added that in situations like this, “almost always the best thing we can do is make sure there’s enough distance and we don’t approach the animal.”

The animal was caught on CCTV as it entered the theater through the front door which was open

The employee can be seen crouching as the huge animal wanders through the foyer of the cinema

It comes weeks after another moose walked into the Providence Health Park medical facility in Anchorage and had to be escorted out by security.

The young moose headed straight for some potted plants as hospital staff and citizens snapped photos and videos of the unusual sighting.

When hospital security arrived, the moose was staring down with some guards.

Randy Hughes, the hospital’s director of security, said: “It’s not every day that a moose walks into a building, so everyone was excited to take pictures and things like that.”

To prevent the large animal from running away wildly, people helped form a circle, while others held onto some branches of the plants to try to get the moose to walk towards the automatic doors.

No one was hurt and the animal eventually left, before taking a nap in the snow outside the building.

A moose walked into an Alaskan hospital earlier this month and had to be escorted out

No one was injured and the large animal appeared to be cooperating with hospital staff