Perhaps the waning of Palin’s star brought this on, but the 2010 crop of orphaned moose have had substantially less media coverage than the moose the governor said faced execution in 2009. (No one ever reported an actual execution. Rick Sinnott, the now-retired Anchorage area wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, was the only state official to admit to culling a healthy orphan calf because there was no place to give it to. Sinnott told reporters he did it once during his career.)
Now, however, the state’s long-term solution is up and running. Alaskans might give Palin credit for that, even if last year’s so-called “verbal order” stopped short of actual policy and if the tone of her Twitter announcement was alarmist and shrill.
 |
To meet the program guidelines, they’ll also need real estate—no farms, please—for holding pens, lots of time for regular calf feeding and, lastly, they’re going to need cash, about $3,200 per calf by the department’s estimate. That cost mainly reflects food and veterinary care, and the department admits it could run much higher. Plus it doesn’t account for the cost for labor to pay for a herdsman, calf rearing pens or even a water source. The guidelines also offer a brief summary of moose husbandry, outlining details of calf feeding, what to look for in their scat (diarrhea could be a sign of scouring in the four-chambered stomach) and a strict rule about pens: They must be on virgin ground, dirt that’s never been used to raise other hoofed animals.
The biologists don’t want young moose to “imprint” on humans and grow to think each person they see is bringing food. To prevent that, the guidelines require screened pens to prevent the moose having too much eye contact with humans. Fish and Game has direct experience from 2009 that shows a moose raised by people could be dangerous. There were reports last fall to biologists that a collared moose calf was following hunters around near where state biologists released captive moose.
The Fish and Game guidelines are strict, and none of the seven moose raised and released in 2009 were raised in conditions that would qualify under the program guidelines.
“This program will require a fair bit of commitment,” says Tom Schumacher, Fish and Game’s permitting biologist. “Finding people to staff it, people committed to caring for a moose every day, that might be the most difficult part.”
Schumacher says the policy document can be seen as a handbook describing how to raise a moose without running afoul of state or federal laws. “The idea is that it’s a handbook. If you want to raise a moose calf, here is how you do it,” he says.
Last year, when biologists in the department were scrambling to meet Palin’s gubernatorial edict—to capture and care for every orphan calf any state officials comes into contact with—Schumacher had the job of recruiting zoos that may want to apply to the state of Alaska for a moose calf.
Fourteen calves, all presumed to be orphans, were taken into state custody in summer 2009. Five made it to zoos. (Captive moose can live fifteen years, perhaps even twenty. Lots of zoos already have a moose or two.) Two moose of the summer 2009 crop died in captivity; biologists suspect dehydration or over-feeding. Seven, all captured in Southcentral Alaska, were released in Eklutna Valley and six of those did not survive the winter. Sinnott (who retired in June) told the Press that when he retrieved collars from dead moose he found no sign that wolves or bears had killed them. A predator kill leaves blood in the snow, evidence of a fight to the death. Winter kills many animals quietly, without that drama. The department did not do necropsies on any of the winter-killed animals, but starvation, dehydration due to illness, and exposure to cold often make for a deadly combination.
The last of the Eklutna Valley transplants was still alive two weeks ago. Anchorage area assistant biologist Jessy Coltrane says she has not had time to track the moose each week, the way Sinnott did last winter. (Her office is a one-woman show for the moment.) A forest fire burned a large swath of the valley in June, and the moose was later located in the area of the burn. “He survived the fire, and yearlings do have a better survival rate [than calves],” Coltrane says.
This year there are just three moose calves in state custody, according to Schumacher, who says all three are living on University of Alaska property near Palmer. Biologists want to release two of them to the wild, and they may be able to if a Fish and Game veterinarian gives the go-ahead. There is a captive population of moose for research on the property, and one baby moose has become part of that “research herd” Schumacher says. One calf the Press reported on this summer was living at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage. At the time, center staff thought it was a male, but a veterinarian later determined it was female. The calf has been moved to the facility operated by Fish and Game.
“We did not have a permit to raise a female,” wildlife center spokesman Ethan Tyler says, adding the center has three adult moose—all bulls—in the fenced moose habitat. Adding a young female could cause trouble, and the center has no permits, or intention, to breed moose.
The Alaska Moose Federation, an organization that uses “Grow more moose” as a motto, has been involved in transporting calves for Fish and Game. No one from the Moose Federation returned a message left on the organization’s voicemail. The nonprofit’s Facebook page features a photo of two captive calves, which it says are the first to be raised for release under the new policy. “These two orphans represent a change in policy for the state of Alaska which has not actively rescued and released orphaned moose calves for over 40 years,” a photo caption on the Facebook page says.
Fish and Game’s first choice is still to reunite suspect orphans with their mother before capturing a moose. A department spokesperson shared an emailed compilation of moose events Sinnott and Coltrane were involved with this year during calving season. On 15 occasions people called to ask if they should rescue a calf and were told not to. (It’s illegal.) Twelve times they either helped or responded to calls in which calves were reunited with their cows. One calf was recorded as “likely reunited” with its mother. Biologists at the research facility in Palmer killed another, which had a leg injury and an infection and had been abandoned by its mother.
Sinnott took one calf, found refusing to walk and in a homeowner’s yard, to a remote location “to check for injuries and euthanize if necessary” when the calf suddenly sprang to its feet. That was unexpected since both the homeowner and the biologist had previously tried to lift the calf to its feet. The calf bolted into the woods before Sinnott could find any injuries or sign of poor health. (The biologist’s notes include the phrase “too old to catch” but sans noun, so readers should politely assume it was the calf’s age, not the biologist’s, the note references.)
Sinnott and Coltrane also retrieved two carcasses of calves found dead in the Anchorage area. (They’re bear bait. People sometimes call Fish and Game if one is on their property.) One carcass was a calf that met a rather urban fate. Perhaps Anchorage’s automobile-fixated design doomed it, or perhaps the calf was suicidal, overcome with ennui, dissatisfaction and sore hooves after being born in the woods and wandering into a world of pavement and traffic. The calf, Sinnott’s email says, “jumped off the overpass” at 100th Avenue and Minnesota Drive.
scott@anchoragepress.com
Comments