Students study to help manage local moose

POINT MACKENZIE — Spending a sunny school day in a snowy meadow seems a small price to pay for saving moose.

This is where Tim Lundt’s two Mat-Su Career and Technical High School science classes found themselves on Tuesday. Lundt is known for taking his teaching out of the classroom, whether it is tracking climate change by measuring tree buds bursting or instilling a universal sense of awe through the school’s observatory, which he operates.

Lundt is also the youth coordinator for the Alaska Moose Federation, a wildlife conservation group committed to protecting moose. One of the ways the group does this is by trying to divert moose away from roadways.

Lundt explained how when the trees and bushes next to a road are cleared, the small sapling trees quickly grow back. To a moose, this is like one big buffet line, Lundt said.

“The roads provide good food. The trees come up, and the moose are attracted to them,” Lundt said. “Then the moose get hit by cars.”

Using the cheap labor of his students — and with the help of grants from Toshiba and the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities — Lundt turned collecting data on how to mitigate roadside feeding into an educational opportunity.

The 40 students from his two classes were bussed to Greg Bell’s homestead off of Alsop Road. Lundt explained that Bell — partly as a homestead requirement and partly to improve the habitat on his land — has cleared areas of his 100-plus acres at different times and with different methods.

The students, broken into groups of three or four, were tasked with recording the size and number of the trees in sample locations within the different areas. Using logger’s tapes and clinometers, the groups estimated the amount of lumber and type of trees in each 33-foot radius circle.

The lesson combining forestry, logging and wildlife management wasn’t lost on sophomore Pat Hickle. Fitting the part of moose hunter in camouflage coveralls, Hickle said getting out of the class is a great way to learn.

“New experiences are always good. Learning about different pathways is a great part of our school,” Hickle said.

In the course of the data collection, the students looked at an area cleared 20 years ago full of willow and alder, perfect forage for moose. Another cleared 50 years ago held giant white spruce and birch trees. A swampy area was dominated by black spruce.

Lundt said the students saw how fast the trees grew back if the mat of brush, trees and limbs were removed after being cut down.

“In an area where you are trying to improve moose habitat, you want to clear the mat out and bring the willow in,” Lundt said.

However, regardless of leaving the mat or not, the willow will find a way. The take-away message, he said, is the areas next to the roadway need to be mowed down every year.

“If we would mow it every year and keep the tree line 100 to 150 feet away from the highway, I bet our moose collisions would drop by 50 percent,” Lundt said.

In addition to counting trees, the students were treated to rides in the Alaska Moose Federation’s snowcat. Groups of six followed the cat trails up to Point MacKenzie Road. At the road, the students identified and analyzed the moose tracks they found.

If the tracks crossed the road, the moose are simply passing through to find better forage. However, if the tracks run parallel or there are signs of moose bedding down, the roadside is providing good food that keeps the moose — and drivers — in danger. After Tuesday’s field work, the classes will turn its sights to the Parks Highway. After snowy days, students will look for moose tracks from Church Road to Houston. Now knowing the signs and what to look for, the students will identify what areas are potentially problematic.

The ultimate goal of all this work is to combine the students’ data with reports of where and when moose are hit by cars to create a map of the most problematic areas. Lundt said he hopes to release this new moose map before next winter.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.