The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is using the nearly 200,000 acres burned by the Funny River Fire to study the benefits on moose population.
Program Coordinator with the department Sue Rodman…
Rodman: ” We’re wondering how the moose are going to respond to that fire, what kind of vegetation is going to come up after the fire. We can make some predictions about the vegetation but there were conditions during the fire that might mean we don’t have the same response that we would have otherwise had if it was a later season fire.”
According to Rodman, moose population has declined on the Kenai Peninsula over the past few years due to fire suppression because of increased development.
Wildlife Biologist Dan Thompson with the department detailed some of their hypotheses for the study.
Thompson: “A lot of the summer time habitat is going to be a lot better, and their ability to put fat on over the summer going into the winter will probably be a lot greater. So we’re trying to look at that as well as their habitat use in those areas and that way we can start tying that into future habitat projects to understand what the moose are using in relation to the mosaic from the burn we can start to plan the same type of things for doing a fire mitigation habitat project.”
He said that the area of the Funny River Fire burn differentiates in landscape compared to the big burns of 1947 and 1969, which were north of the Kenai River, so this year’s burn provides a new opportunity for biologists to compare moose in the different areas.