As of Wednesday, one hunter checked in a moose on opening day of the subsistence hunt, said Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Carl Koch.
“It’s a slow start. Nothing yet,” Koch said Wednesday afternoon. “It’s uncommon that we haven’t gotten one on the first day. I’ll be curious to see what happens.”
Later that afternoon the first moose was checked in.
Koch said, based on population surveys last year, biologists are estimating 350 to 400 moose in the valley, which is a healthy population.
“We’re expecting to do the same thing we did in the past,” Koch said of the annual hunt. “When it starts getting closer to 25 moose, we’ll look at how many sublegals there are. We think the population is doing pretty good so we don’t have any major concerns that would cause me to lower the quota or anything like that.”
Koch said 31 calves were counted during two aerial surveys in May and June. Biologists hope to fly another survey, weather permitting, at the end of the summer after trees lose their foliage.
“We’ll see how many of the calves survived the summer,” Koch said. “I really appreciate when hunters see a collared moose, that they note the collar number and color and if they get a good look, let me know how many calves they have and where they saw them.”
Last year’s hunt started off with a bang when 17 moose were checked in five days into the hunt. Scott Bradford shot his moose on the second day of last year’s hunt. He said this year is the first his son, Casey, was selected for a permit. Bradford said they plan to leave Wednesday at daybreak. “If we see a legal moose, he gets to shoot it,” Bradford said.
Hunters have three days to bring their moose to the check-in station at the Fish and Game office. The Haines moose hunt is limited to 250 permits with a harvest guideline of 20-25 animals.
Koch said the brown bear hunt is coinciding with the moose hunt, and that brown bear hunters have three days to report a brown bear harvest this year instead of 10 days, which was typical in the past. Reporting requirements have changed because 17 bears were killed outside of the hunting season last year.
“If we wait ten days, we could vastly exceed the quota,” Koch said.