Alaska Beat

Federation assists Mat-Su farmer under siege by moose

The Alaska Moose Federation, whose mission is to "grow more moose" by luring the animals away from potentially deadly encounters with vehicles on highways, is helping out a Point MacKenzie farmer who's under siege by moose. Wayne Brost tells the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman he lost as much as $8,000 worth of livestock feed when scores of moose, starving during last winter's record snowfall, raided his fields and a storage structure. Enter the Moose Federation, which is building fences across the open ends of the Quonset hut in which Brost stores feed.

After Brost took his case to the state Department of Fish and Game, which told Brost that keeping moose out of his feed wasn't its problem, the longtime farmer appealed to AMF.

Although keeping moose out of farmers' feed isn't the specific mission of the moose federation, mitigating moose-human contact is, said AMF Executive Director Gary Olson. But building traditional fencing is expensive and labor-intensive, especially around large tracts of land.

Instead of spending its financial resources on fencing, AMF used some old donated well pipe and gathered volunteers to build panels to place around the open ends of Brost's storage hut.

Olson told the Frontiersman he's been informed by Mat-Su officials that many more borough farmers could use help figuring out a way to keep moose off their feed harvest.

Read more at the Frontiersman: No more free lunch for moose

Anchorage

ADVERTISEMENT