Hunters have surpassed a record record for the month-long hunt for moose within Central Southeast Alaska: 141 bulls. This record exceeds nine bulls more than previous records for which had been set back in 2021 with 130 bulls.
The hunt opened from September. 15 until October. 15. Hunters were given until Friday to declare their kills to Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
The majority of this year’s moose — 61 bullswere taken from Kupreanof the island the place where hunters have consistently racked the highest number of moose throughout the years. The second-highest harvest31 bulls was harvested directly from Kuiu Island.
Frank Robbins, who manages the hunt area of the state, says that’s an amazing improvement for the island in comparison to the past few years.
“It wasn’t too long ago that there was almost no harvesting of moose in Kuiu Island,” said Robbins. “Then in the past six years, we’ve kind of seen a huge increase in harvest.”
Petersburg’s Mitkof Island was another outlier. Twelve moose were also killed on the island. However, there were only 3 bulls killed.
In the past 10 years the moose hunter has established many records in the area, named RM038. Robbins claims that this is because moose are getting closer . A few years ago, there were few within the region and hunting was nearly exclusively confined towards the continental. However, as time has passed Robbins says he’s noticed more moose grazing on isolated islands.
“The trend lately is that the distribution is expanding over Kupreanof into Kuiu which is the main reason for the growth in harvest in the course of time,” said Robbins. “That’s kind of the major shift. The harvest has changed direction to the west. The moose have moved from the mainland to the island habitats as time passed, and have slowly increasing in number. That’s evident in the amount of food consumed.”
In the months hunters informed state managers that they had seen a lot of total moose — which translates to bulls, cows, as well as calves — throughout the hunting area. Robbins says this is a good sign for the future hunts. T
