Moose give Board of Game much to graze on

I need to make a couple of corrections from last week’s column and the opinion piece I wrote. First, from the opinion piece, the proper name of one of the large caliber cartridges mentioned should have been 450 Bushmaster, not the 450 Bushman. The second correction is that the Board of Game (BOG) meeting in Wasilla is scheduled for February 2013, not January, as I had stated.

According to both the BOG proposal book and its website, the meeting is scheduled from Feb. 8-15, 2013, at the Best Western Lake Lucille Inn in Wasilla. If you want to submit any written comments about any of the proposals coming under consideration, the deadline to send them is Jan. 25. You can find the proposals online at the BOG website. If you’re unsure how to submit comments, check the BOG website for instructions or call the Palmer Fish and Game office. The folks there would be happy to help you.

We’ve spent a lot of time on fisheries issues here, so it’s only fair to mention some wildlife issues for the Valley. One involves the antlerless moose hunts up for renewal before the BOG in February. Personally, I support the antlerless hunts as long as the population counts support the need.

To manage a healthy herd, the numbers of animals need to be kept in balance with the available habitat necessary to support those numbers. Even with last winter’s die-off, preliminary population survey counts indicate a large number of moose in Unit 14A — almost a thousand more than estimates of what the habitat can support. In addition to the high moose counts, another concern managers have is the bull/cow ratio, the number of bulls per 100 cows.

Unit 14A has been running right at or slightly below the optimal number of 20-25 bulls per 100 cows for several years. Harvesting more bulls could endanger the health of the herd for lack of bulls to service the number of cows available. If more bulls can’t be harvested and there are more animals than the habitat can support without incurring some damage over time, what’s left? We need to reduce the number of cows.

The evaluation process for management biologists is more complicated than I’ve described, but the end result will be similar. I’m hoping the BOG reauthorizes antlerless hunts and that, finally, either my wife or I get drawn for a permit. If we both draw, you’ll see me smiling.

There is another option those who don’t understand population dynamics almost always oppose and that is harvesting calves as well. The short explanation is that to maintain healthy animal numbers by hunting, some of every group within the population — bulls, cows, calves, females and males — need to be harvested. There are no proposals asking to harvest calves in this area at this time, but if moose numbers continue to be as high or higher than current estimates, I would expect to see a future BOG considering that as an option to help bring moose numbers back in line with available habitat.

When I lived on Afognak Island back in the 1980s, the Sitka blacktail deer bag limit was six deer. Not six bucks or six adults, but six deer. Most hunters wanted to shoot the big bucks with maybe an adult doe or two to fill the freezer. I wasn’t as particular. If we were low on meat and the only available shot I got while hunting was a “Bambi,” I shot it. Of the 40 or so deer I shot during my nine years on Afognak, I’d guess three or four were Bambis (we called them “suitcase” deer because they were easy to carry). This across-the-board mortality helped keep the population in balance. Some tough winters during the 1990s really killed off the herds, eliminating bucks, does and Bambis without regard to age or sex.

Another proposal asks that all successful moose hunters in Unit 14A bring their lower jaws and antlers to Fish and Game for aging and measurement. The proposal would sunset in two years, but would provide real data on age and antler size for bulls in 14A. The regulations currently reflect what is thought to be available. If this proposal passes, hard data can be collected and regulations can be adjusted, if necessary, to deal with what really is here, rather than what is thought to be here.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.