Snow cats take out students on St. Patty's Day.

[Moose Guy]

St. Patricks day was spent a little different out of Pt. McKenzie Alaska! The Alaska Moose Federation, along with multiple partners, began a critical wintering habitat enhancement project out away from a high moose collision road corridor. Our trusty #1776 Snow Trac was one of the snow cats hauling students around the 250 acre work area.

22 students, from Mr. Lundt's science class, came out from CTE High School to study the area's moose habitat from determining where more moose habitat needs to be enhanced to areas where moose browse should be removed (typically next to the road). The student's analyzed the amount of moose browse in mature forest areas versus areas that have been enhanced in the past by determining how many new stems per acre are now growing. GCI's 2004 GT 300 is dropping off another group of students. Definitely one of the coolest field trips these students have taken!

Alaska Magazine was out for the day documenting the project's kick off. They are planning on a major cover story for the AMF this summer. Here GCI's snow cat is headed out with another load of students. Their crew cab is very handy for helping to haul folks around to see the work the AMF accomplishes back away from the highways!

The primary work horse for the project is a D6M wide pad dozer with a 14' blade. NC Machinery provided the unit for a month to help accomplish the project. This is a fantastic donation from a company that truly understands the tools needed to help moose winter away from highways!

The goal of this work is to knock down the mature black spruce which provides little to no benefit for moose. After the spruce trees are knocked down, willow, birch and other hardwoods sprout up which provide the needed browse for moose back away from the highway. We found an interesting fact from this project. There is a state prison being constructed out along the road in the general area of this work. The workers have hit 22 moose driving to and from the work site since the construction project started!

This last picture is on the Parks Highway north of Willow where moose are unfortunatley hit by cars on a daily basis by cars. This stretch of road was just recently expanded 150'-200' from the center of the road so not only can you see the moose but the moose browse (food) has been completely removed from the side of the corridor. Moose eat about 30 - 40 lbs of browse a day. The more they find this browse back away from the highways, the safer the roads will be!

 

[pixie]

Thanks for the great pictures and for educating the kids along with the benefits your group provides for the moose !

How long does the birch and willow take to regenerate to the point that it's big enough to provide browse ? Don't the moose strip the young trees ?

There's lots of moose on my land but they have eaten the red maple trees and bark so many times that the trees are stunted and often die. I'd like to make an area that would help them thru the winter.

 

[Snowtrac Nome]

you can kind of thank the tree huggers for the problem because when companys go in and log out old groth the moose population blossomes on the new groth that comes back i admit that clear cutting is ugly but mother nature recoveers fast if we arn't going to let mother nature burn it down than let logging outfits go harvest small tracts away from the road one of the reason for being alonc side the road is the good stuff that grows back after dot brushes the right of way.

 

[Moose Guy]

Hey Pixie,

DDS has it about right where unfortunately much of the best moose habitat ends up being within 50' of the highways. I've attached a couple of photos showing a couple of problems that the Alaska Moose Federation is working to change. This photo shows a portion of the Parks Highway in dire need of clearing the right-of-way of moose browse. This is what we call a 'moose buffet!'

Here is another problem that contributes to moose collisions where our Department of Transportation (DOT) actually is encouraging collisions by planting moose browse (typically young birch, mountain ash and other tasty trees) along the roads. Add to this the placement of a moose warning sign for upcoming drivers. Kind of confusing. Imagine an agency warning pilots of geese on a runway after they just got done planting goose food next to the airport?

Recently our DOT took a major step in the right direction in widening a known moose collision corridor north of Willow where they took the right-of-ways out 150' to 200' from the center line. Now not only can you see the moose back away from the road surface but the removal of the food encourages the moose to live back away from the corridor. That is where our snow cats come in by grooming snow trails for the moose to walk on away from the roads. Our goal is to assume a partnership with DOT where we will secure equipment to keep new right-of-ways like this cleared annually.

On your other questions, we try to enhance 250+ acres of wintering habitat each project. You're right that, if there is not enough new regenerated growth from smaller habitat projects, the moose will congregate there until all the new trees are 'eaten.' Alaskan willow can grow 4+' in a season so, in the case of right-of-ways, if the state clears the right-of-way too early in the year, the moose food can be tall enough by fall where the moose will be eating the browse the very same year. Cars continue to get smaller while moose stay the same size. These problems better start getting fixed because it would be a bad idea to hit a moose with a smart car!

 

[Melensdad]

We had 65 degrees and sunshine on St Paddy's day here, today we are hovering around 30 degrees, alternating ice, rain, snow. Its just muddy outside.

But it is nice to see your photos and the students out there doing some good for nature!