Wildlife Management & Research
Big Game
Counting wildlife and determining their status is challenging, yet it is vital for maintaining sustainable populations. Demand for hunting and harvest of big game often exceeds the harvestable surplus. The Alaska Board of Game establishes seasons and bag limits for hunted species, and it relies on science-based Division of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) information to help guide its decision-making.
For species like moose, biologists have decades of experience in developing survey techniques that account for important variables like variation in moose density and habitat-dependent differences in sightability. These types of factors require use of sophisticated aerial survey methods and state-of-the-art statistical methods. Populations of other species (especially black bear, brown bear, and Sitka black-tailed deer) are estimated and managed by applying recent advances in DNA methods. Tissue samples are collected using noninvasive techniques (e.g., hair-sampling snares); the DNA is then analyzed to uniquely identify each sampled animal. Mark-recapture statistics are used to estimate abundance.
Radiotelemetry is also widely used in wildlife management. Sometimes it’s as simple as maintaining radiocollars on a sample of caribou, to understand their movements and count them during annual photo censuses. In other cases, DWC staff radiocollar newborn moose or caribou to examine sources of mortality; this includes predation by bears (black and/or brown) and wolves that may be primary limiting factors on low populations.
Some projects focus on the habitats where species such as deer, wolves, wolverines, or bears are located, to evaluate factors such as forest management or the species’ vulnerability to hunting. Global positioning system (GPS) radiocollars are used when highly accurate locations are necessary. On rare occasions, the department has resorted to game transplants or reintroductions as a management tool, but only after extensive study and consultation.