The doorbell rang about 10am this morning. A man in a fluorescent vest was outside. I'd gotten a red tag on my car a couple of weeks ago saying it would be towed if I didn't move it. I have moved it since then, but my first thought was that this was the tow truck.
But no, he was from Alaska Fish and Game. Could he have my permission to go into my backyard and dart the moose. I didn't even know there was a moose in my back yard. I said sure and went to look out a back window.
He shot the dart at the closest moose which went up the hill and scampered over the fence. (I'd noticed the other day when I went to the compost heap that there was only about a foot and a half of fence above the snow these days.) Then he was aiming at the second one who'd gotten on its feet by this time.
“We could drive around all we wanted, but we would never find that moose in the back of somebody’s house without without the public calling in,” Saalfeld said.When someone calls in a moose sighting this weekend, it will trigger a series of events. Biologists receive the alert — they average around 1,000 moose tips each weekend. Then, one of seven two-person teams will head to the location of the report.From there, they fire what’s known as a “biopsy gun,” which lightly strikes the moose with a dart, Saalfeld said.The dart is designed to pop out quickly, only retaining a bit of tissue that scientists can use to determine that moose’s unique DNA and record it as part of the Anchorage moose population.“Most of the moose don’t even feel it, or if they feel it, it’s very light,” Saalfeld said. “And they actually typically lay down or sit on top of it, and we have to wait sometimes a pretty good amount of time before we can actually go in and recover that dart because the moose is standing right on top of it for so long.”
The moose in our yard didn't take it that casually. They got out of there as soon as they felt the dart. Or maybe it was seeing a guy with a gun. Now I feel a little guilty giving permission to dart them in our yard. The moose looked like they'd found a comfortable place to rest and then they got shot with a dart. I doubt they'll be back in our yard for a while.
Just wow. You are on the "tagging" edge of life up there. Never a dull moment.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you feel guilty. Do urban Alaskans like having moose in the back yard? We in the lower 48 hate having deer, because they eat everything in sight. When my sister-in-law lived in Anchorage she had chain link fence around her back yard and yet moose would leap in. And sometimes not remember how to leap out. Despite being a professional tree-hugger, she didn't love them.
ReplyDeleteMost Anchorage residents love that we have moose in our neighborhoods. They're magnificent huge animals. It's hard to see a moose except in the wild. And the moose were here first. We're on their land, just as we're on the land of the Dena'ina people. There are people who don't like moose eating their apples or vegetable crops. But apples are not native to Alaska. Those folks put up high fences or chicken wire around their apple trees. Much of our yard is natural - spruce, birch, alder, cottonwood, high bush cranberry. They do dine on our mountain ash trees in the winter - but I've left shoots around the trunk for them and, in the past, had to put chicken wire around the trunks so they wouldn't eat the bark and kill the tree.
DeleteBut to have moose in your yard is always a thrill. It's one of the things that makes Anchorage a special place to live.