Alaska Department of Fish and Game staff tagged 13 moose in the Chilkat Valley last week.
But those tags are different from the ones they’ve been putting on moose for the last seven years.

During a meeting at the Haines library, area management biologist Hannah Manninen said Fish and Game staff are making the switch from VHF to GPS collars.

This isn’t the first year that staff have used GPS collars, but Manninen said this year has been the “biggest push” to get the collars deployed.

VHF, or very high frequency, collars give off limited data. Generally, researchers on the ground or in the air get a series of “pings” from a transmitter attached to a moose that changes in tone depending on how close the animal is and the direction the signal is coming from.

GPS, a more recent technology, uses satellites to provide positioning and can allow almost real-time tracking.

Manninen said that means they can also track mortality much faster and – if they can get to the site fast enough – determine how a moose died.

The state has surveyed moose in the Chilkat Valley for more than 60 years, but didn’t start collaring moose to help with population estimates until 2019.

Manninen said next week, weather permitting, they’ll fly a few flights to try to get more data on calf survival, and estimate how many yearlings made it through the winter.

One reason for the switch, Manninen said, is to gather more concrete data about local moose.

Manninen said Fish and Game staff will not share real time movement data and location specific information for the moose.

But, she said her office will use the data to help establish the animals’ home ranges and “figure out where they spend their time.”

That, in turn, could inform future land-use decisions in the Chilkat Valley.