Twenty-five moose were harvested by the Oct. 7 closure of the Unit 1D hunt. Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Carl Koch said the hunt was one of the best he’s seen since he started managing it in 2007.

Hunters checked in 12 spike-fork, eight three-brow tine, and three with antlers over 50 inches. Of those three, one was 58 and a quarter inch “which is right up there with some of the biggest I’ve seen.”

“Anything over fifty-six inches is really big for the Haines area,” Koch said. “That’s pretty impressive.”

Koch said the number of bulls with spikes or forked antlers, which is typically indicative of a yearling moose, is a good indication that the moose population is doing well.

“Antlers are based on genetic potential and nutrition,” Koch said. “If they have good genes and nutrition is good, they’re more likely to grow slightly bigger than a spike fork and not be legal. Those are the ones you’d like to see breeding down the road.”

Some of the bigger bulls’ antlers showed evidence that they were fighting, another sign that the population is doing well, Koch said.

“Several of the bigger bulls had broken antlers,” he said. “Two were broken off all the way down to the skull which was kind of interesting. They had other large bulls to battle with so there’s a decent amount of larger bulls out there as well. A lot of guys said they saw a lot of bulls that weren’t quite legal. I think the population’s probably doing pretty good.”

The successful hunt follows one of the lowest harvest years Koch has seen. Last year, hunters checked in 14 moose, the lowest since 2008. Between 2013 and 2020, 20 to 25 bulls were harvested each year.

Craig Loomis, who was skunked last year, said his hunting party shot two moose this year and saw many signs of life.

“I started moose hunting here when I was 12. There were a tremendous amount of moose here,” Loomis said. “This was the most calves I’ve seen in 30 years.”

He said he was cleaning a carcass on his property when his hunting partner and son-in-law Paul Carrington saw a moose across the road from Loomis’ house.

“He ran down there with his bow and put two arrows in it and it fell over dead,” Loomis said. “I watched the whole thing through my spotting scope.”

Loomis credits the increase of the moose population to the decrease in the brown bear population. In 2020, residents and police shot a record number of bears outside of hunting season which Fish and Game biologists estimated caused a 16-20% decrease in the brown bear population.

Koch said similar spike forked ratios in the past did not align with bear mortality and said while it’s reasonable to assume more moose means less predators, other factors could contribute to the increase in the yearling bull population. Increased twin birth rates could signal good nutrition availability for moose. Winter survival, while bears are hibernating, also impacts moose populations and is more affected by winter severity and wolf predation.

“Having said all that, I suspect that low natural foods in 2020 likely increased predation by bears on moose. It’s possible that the reduction in bears and the increase in abundance of natural foods (berries and coho and chum salmon) in 2021 and 2022 reduced moose predation by bears,” Koch said. “We are constitutionally mandated to manage all the populations (including bears) for the goal of sustainable harvest.”

Koch thanked hunters this year who reported collared moose and calves counts.

“That helps a lot because we can only fly so many days a year to get our index of survival and recruitment. Occasionally, we won’t be able to get a good look at a collared moose during a survey but a hunter will see it later while moose hunting and report calf status which is extremely helpful,” he said.