WASILLA -- In a cautionary twist on the usual car versus moose encounter, an Alaska State Trooper hit a black bear on the Parks Highway late last month.

Trooper Gary Cox collided with the animal at Mile 50 of the Parks, in the Meadow Lakes area about a mile west of Pittman Road. The bear was subsequently run over by two other vehicles. All the people involved were fine, though Cox's patrol car sustained $600 in damage.

State wildlife biologist Tony Kavalok wasn't surprised to hear about the "bear (trooper) meets bear on the road" story, as he called it.

That stretch of highway is part of a roughly 10-mile corridor notorious for moose kills, as well as dangers to human drivers. And now's the time of year that drivers start seeing more wildlife on the roads, as the snow deepens in the mountains and critters head for lower-elevation feeding grounds.

The Parks Highway around Meadow Lakes is one of the highest moose-collision areas in Alaska, Kavalok said. There's a healthy bear population in the area too.

The bear was probably there for the same reason so many moose wander through: A "corridor" of forest on either side of the highway that provides food and cover.

Moose, at least, move from the foothills of the Talkeetna Mountains around Schrock Road down Pittman, across the Parks to Vine and Hollywood roads, sometimes even as far as Knik-Goose Bay Road or Big Lake, the biologist said.

But, unlike more sparsely populated sections of highway toward Houston, this part of the Parks is dotted with homes and businesses.

Moose -- or bear -- seeking the cover of trees have really limited places to cross, Kavalok said, and the road gets heavy traffic.

"It's a danger zone for wildlife," he said.

The Parks Highway around Meadow Lakes is also one of the state's more dangerous sections of highway for humans.

The stretch from Mile 44.5 to Mile 53 -- Church Road to the Big Lake cutoff -- was named a safety corridor in 2006 due to the number of fatal and injury-causing accidents there. Moose accounted for 20 percent of the 341 accidents between the Big Lake cutoff and Wasilla from 2003 to 2007, according to data from the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

None were fatal but 11 involved possible injury.

Mark Braaten lives with his wife, Robin, in a log home at Mile 50. They didn't hear anything about the bear encounter but have seen a number of moose hit right in front of their house, Braaten said.

"They cross, there's a little strip of woods on either side of the house. They do cross quite often," he said. "We'll start seeing moose now. Soon as the snow hits in the mountains, they start moving in."

As far as any man-made solutions to the Parks Highway problem, there are no plans for a big, moose-blocking fence along the highway like the one along the Glenn Highway at Fort Richardson.

Instead, Kavalok said, volunteers from the Alaska Moose Federation, Spenard Builders Supply and other groups got the state's blessing and cut back brush along the highway near Wasilla, from Church Road back toward Lake Lucille.

"There'll be less linger time and more warning if the moose are going to cross the road," he said.