The animal ignored the man’s efforts to scare it off by shouting, and butted the tree in an attempt to force him down, NRK reports.

The running workout, along a path in Trondheim on Sunday, took a drastic turn for the man, who is in his 60s, the broadcaster writes.

An elk on the path cut such an aggressive form that the man was forced to seek refuge up a tree.

READ ALSO: Is it called an elk or a moose?

Fortuitously, the man was carrying his mobile telephone and was able to contact police.

“When he spoke to us he was sitting up the tree and the elk was standing on the hill below him. He couldn’t get anywhere,” police officer Trond Volden of Trøndelag Police District told NRK.

Trondheim Municipality’s animal patrol has estimated the animal to be one and a half years old, weighing in at three hundred kilograms.

The runner’s attempts to scare the beast away proved in vain.

“He tried to scare off the elk by making noises, but the elk just got angry and started butting the tree,” Volden said.

But the animal eventually withdrew enough for the man to climb down and was some way from the path by the time police arrived.

Municipal animal control (Viltpatruljen) in Trondheim subsequently decided to destroy the elk.

“We have a large elk population in Trondheim. We have a low threshold for putting down elk which behave aggressively near inhabited areas, so we therefore decided to destroy this elk,” Geir Lasse Aune of Viltpatruljen Trondheim told NRK.

Aune added that elk spotted near inhabited areas should be avoided, particularly by people with dogs, which can cause a defensive reaction in the elk.

READ ALSO: Elk shot in Norway after falling from daycare roof