For the second year in a row, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was unable to take a survey of Anchorage's moose population, as scarce snow and poor weather hindered the agency's efforts.
Anchorage-based wildlife biologist Dave Battle said the data collected is key in managing a healthy local moose population and helps Fish and Game determine how many moose hunting permits to hand out annually.
Biologists need two things to be able to conduct a thorough aerial survey: solid snow cover to be able to spot the brown moose on the ground, and to complete the survey before bull moose start dropping their racks in early December.
An especially warm November and December prevented the survey last year, and attempts to conduct the survey in 2015 proved just as fruitless.
"It's very frustrating," Battle said last week. "We only had one day we might have been able to fly and it ended up the President was flying through our airspace, so we couldn't. And then the snow started melting away. It's very frustrating with these kinds of conditions."
Battle was playing a guessing game with the weather since about mid-November. Over the course of several weeks, Battle said in emails that the weather forecast offered reason to hope, but then snow forecasts turned to rain, or the snow on the ground melted in the warm temperatures of November, including an unusually warm Thanksgiving week.
On Nov. 22, when conditions were more ideal for both flying and moose-spotting, another hang-up arose: President Barack Obama was scheduled to fly through Anchorage airspace, which restricted other air traffic over the city between 2 and 5 p.m. -- during the limited daylight hours of the Alaska winter.
"Pretty disappointing not to get out on the one day we might have gotten something done though," Battle said the next day, and added rain was forecast for the days following.
On Dec. 7, Battle said, they threw in the towel. Conditions hadn't improved and bull moose were starting to drop their racks.
The last survey was conducted in 2013. Biologists can use harvest numbers and the number of road-killed moose to get an estimate, but aerial survey data is more precise.
"It is more of a challenge to manage moose without updated surveys, but it's not necessary to have a survey every year," Battle said. "We hope to fly surveys every year, but the fact is we just don't always get conditions."
According to Battle, the population information collected from an aerial survey becomes most important after a couple of years without one or following a harsh winter. It isn't unheard of for Fish and Game to go consecutive years without the survey, too. Battle said some places across the state go several years without a moose population survey.
Battle also said biologists don't need to survey an entire area to get an estimate on the moose population.
"Through the wonder of statistical analysis, we can still estimate population of the entire game management unit based on the areas we were able to survey," Battle said.
Fish and Game still plans on doing a total count of the 20 Mile River and Portage Glacier areas, even though the department won't be able to obtain more specific data on the number of bull moose compared to cows.
"That area has a history of high amounts of winter kill once moose numbers get too high, so it's important to at least keep up to date on the total figure," Battle said.
"That area is especially important because it has a history of after having a couple mild winters, the population will increase," he said. "Then, the next winter we have a lot of winter kill. We want to keep track of the moose to give out more hunting permits."
But when Fish and Game will be able to fly the area is up to nature.