All’s fair view in love, war — Kasilof neighbors get up-close show of bull moose skirmish

By Jenny Neyman

Photos courtesy of Chelsea Ann Woolcock, http://www.chelseasconfidentcreations.com. Bull moose compete for the attention of a nearby cow in a neighborhood off of North Cohoe Loop Road in Kasilof on Sunday. The moose sparred for a half hour to 45 minutes in easy view of homes and the road.

Redoubt Reporter

Living in a high moose traffic area off North Cohoe Loop Road in Kasilof for the last two and a half years — and in Alaska for 17 — the thrill of seeing moose up close has lost a little of its excitement for Chelsea Ann Woolcock.

That’s bound to happen eventually, when most times she opens her deck door to let her dog out at night there’s a moose within 5 feet of her house.

“This last spring I think the same cow and baby (that are in the neighborhood this year) were in the road and I had to drive slowly while they were running right in front of me. It’s cute and cool but you get so used to it it’s like, ‘Really? I’ve got to get to town. Run in the woods, already,’” Woolcock said.

But Sunday, moose in her neighborhood gave her a renewed sense of awe as she witnessed two bulls spar with each other for a half hour to 45 minutes.

“It was really cool. I was really excited. I couldn’t hardly sleep last night, I kept thinking about it. I didn’t want to come home but I finally left them alone to do their thing,” she said.

Woolcock runs her own graphic design business, Chelsea’s Confident Creations, from home on Fairway off of Cohoe Loop. She was driving home about 6 p.m. Sunday when she saw two bulls, about 4 years old, she estimated, in a neighbor’s yard, slamming their antlers into each other. She figures they were competing for a cow in the area.

Eventually the jousting match broke up, one bull stopped for a snack, while the other headed into the woods in the direction the cow had gone, Woolcock said.

“We see a lot of moose around here, but you don’t get to see stuff like that a lot,” she said.

Common Ground: Hares snare populations of other animals

By Steve Meyer, for the Redoubt Reporter

Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. High hare years can mean low grouse numbers, which appears to be the case this hunting season.

The varying hare, more commonly known as the snowshoe rabbit, is an influential little bugger. Their peculiar cycle is noticeable, in their absence when they are in a low cycle of abundance, and eating of all your flowers and vegetables when they are in an up cycle.

Their cycle is commonly thought to run in seven-year increments, which is only generally true. Until three years ago the hares had not shown a traditional up cycle since the 1980s. A traditional up cycle means the hares are everywhere, when you can’t throw the proverbial dead cat without hitting one. After so many years of seemingly low numbers, they have been prolific for three seasons now.

Nature, in its remarkable way, quickly detects when the hares are cycling up, and the result is a proliferation of predators. Lynx populations on the Kenai the past two seasons have exploded, resulting in record numbers of catches by trappers. Lynx sightings are common even in areas that support human populations.

The astonishing increase in the number of hawks, falcons and owls on the Kenai in the past two years is no coincidence, either. Coyote numbers are clearly up, as well. Again, the hares are to blame, or to thank, depending on your perspective.

All of this abundance of predators is great for wildlife viewers, fur trappers and predator hunters. It isn’t so great for young hunters out learning the ropes on spruce grouse, big game hunters looking for camp meat or upland bird hunters and their dogs.

Critter camera — Refuge installs surveillance to catch sight of cougars

By Joseph Robertia

Photos courtesy of Todd Eskelin, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. A rainy spell in June brought this lynx on June 6 by one of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge trail cameras set in the Skilak area to try to capture photographic proof of a cougar to substantiate the sightings that have increased recently.

Redoubt Reporter

Sightings are very rare, but growing more common each year. Sometimes it is drivers in Sterling who see them, or sometimes hikers at the Russian River are getting a glimpse. The reports are the same — a feline flash of tawny gray-brown. That’s not necessarily out of the norm in a countryside covered by lynx, but what makes these descriptions unique is that, following behind these cats, is a long tail.

This can be only one animal, but is a species that goes by many names — mountain lion, cougar and puma. Regardless of what it’s called, these large felines for many years have been thought to not be present in Alaska, and especially not found on the Kenai Peninsula. Sightings were regarded as mistaken, or at least questionable, until recently.

“We have been receiving reports of mountain lions for as long as I have been here, but there was a real cluster of sightings in the Skilak Loop area for the past couple of summers. Some of the sightings were from very credible sources and the description provided left little doubt,” said Todd Eskelin, a biologist at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Mountain lions range through 16 states in the Lower 48, as well as throughout western Canada, but they are not officially recognized as existing in Alaska. However, in December 1998, a wolf trapper reportedly snared a mountain lion on south Kupreanof Island, and in November 1989 a mountain lion was shot near Wrangell. There also are numerous sightings across the state annually.

“Yet, to my knowledge, there has yet to be a single irrefutable picture taken, and with cellphone cams you would think there would be at least one blurry one showing a long tail,” Eskelin said.

Law or not — Cub rescuer recognizes safety concern, would do it again anyway

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

The situation was precarious, to say the least. Three fishermen in a drift boat were drawn by the terrifying, teeth-rattling cries of a brown bear cub caught in an eddy in the upper Kenai River. The cub seemed to be tiring from fighting the current and not making any headway in breaking free of the whirlpool and getting to shore, where, somewhere in the brush, the cub’s mother lurked.

The fishermen — Dustin Klepacki, a Kenai River fishing guide, Mike Polocz, Klepacki’s father, of Soldotna, and friend Charlie Mettille — decided to help. After several tries to nudge the bear out of the current with a landing net, but ending up just spinning the boat in the eddy, too, the current swept the cub against the boat, and it was pinned there just long enough for Polocz to push it into slower-moving water. From there it swam to shore. After resting on shore it let out another screech, which was answered by the sow, the Polocz said.

Luckily, the rescue had a happy ending, but there are many, many ways in which it could have ended unhappily, even tragically. That’s why wildlife managers with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game can’t condone the fishermen’s actions. They can understand the visceral impact a cub’s cries can have, they can empathize with the urge to help when seeing an animal in distress, but they can’t recommend handling the situation as Polocz, Klepacki and Mettille did.

“We don’t try to encourage that type of behavior. We understand that people value our wildlife, but I would really discourage any attempts to try to save an animal or interact that closely, particularly with a brown bear cub with a sow nearby,” said Larry Lewis, a Soldotna-based wildlife technician for Fish and Game. “The fact is that we do have rules and regulations that govern human behavior around wildlife. I would rather see people adhere to the regulations and the reasons for those regulations than to take matters into their own hands.”

Mettille recorded part of the rescue on a cellphone camera and Polocz posted the footage on YouTube. The video has gone viral, nearing 250,000 views as of Monday, catapulting the fishermen into their proverbial 15 minutes of fame. Polocz opted to allow online advertising on the YouTube clip, to try to make the most of the attention. Whatever money the ads raise, the fishermen agreed to donate 100 percent to a charity in Alaska that benefits abused or abandoned animals. If the amount doesn’t get too high, Polocz said that his company, Alaska H2O Pros, will match the amount.

“I’ve just been running in circles with this stuff. I’m not an attention tramp or anything like that but we’re thrilled to share the story,” Polocz said. “I think I was up at 2 in morning to do an interview with ‘Fox and Friends’ on Sunday, after flying back and forth to Anchorage doing the other interviews.”

Swimming in sea otters — Bay population high despite virus

By Naomi Klouda

Redoubt Reporter file photo

Homer Tribune

Sea otters along the Homer Spit are catching tourists’ attention like the famed Homer Spit eagle flocks in their heyday.

Otter numbers are high and they are rafting closer to the Homer Spit, offering closer inspections than what is normally encountered there.

High tide brings the fun-to-watch marine mammals ever closer to Spit Road, where cars pull over to observe their antics and snap photos. This isn’t always a safe situation for the flow of traffic, as Homer Police Chief Mark Robl cautions.

“It goes with the season. I would just really urge folks to be careful and pull completely off the roadway. Be cognizant of pedestrians, bicyclists and other traffic,” Robl said. “I witnessed a woman who stopped in the middle of roadway to take photos. Not a good idea. She created an unsafe situation.”

Verena Gill, a wildlife biologist with the Marine Management Division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has studied the Kachemak Bay population of otters for several years and said the population is “stable and in good numbers.”

The population estimate in the last year studied, 2008, was 3,600 otters, up from the 1990s when the bay’s otter population topped out at 1,000 or fewer. The numbers may have changed again, and a new population count is set for August, Gill said.

Angela Doroff, a research coordinator with the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve who has worked with otter population studies for 25 years, said one development appears to be new this season.

“It’s surprising to see more animals around the Spit in the summertime. Usually we see high numbers there in wintertime and less in summer,” Doroff said.

To catch a calf — Sterling neighbors pitch in to help orphan moose

By Jenny Neyman

Photo courtesy of John Menz. A cow moose and its young calf browse on cut-down trees in the yard of John Menz and Judy Warren, of Sterling. The cow died Thursday night, leaving Menz and neighbor, Tim Mankee, hoping to capture the calf for relocation by the Alaska Moose Federation.

Redoubt Reporter

Becoming an orphaned moose calf in June in a busy bear corridor near the Kenai River a block away from the Sterling Highway — ramping up to the peak of summer traffic, no less — is not the luckiest start to life. But for one young bull moose calf, finding itself in the Sterling yard of animal lovers Joe Menz and Judy Warren may have been about the luckiest place to face that situation, as Menz and neighbor, Tim Mankee, attempted to capture the calf so it could be taken to the protective pens of the Alaska Moose Federation.

The calf and its mother have been hanging around Menz and Warren’s home on Barbara Street, in between Suzie’s Diner and the Sterling Senior Center, for the last two weeks, Menz said. The calf was born not far from the house — through the trees on a neighboring lot with an abandoned trailer. Cow and calf have been browsing through the gravel-road, forested neighborhood this spring, seeming to prefer Menz and Warren’s yellow house as a home base.

“He’s been here so long all he knows is the house. For two weeks I’d see him turn around, stare at the house. He’d go across the street, turn around, stare at the house,” Menz said.

He and Warren kept their two dogs under house arrest out of respect for the moose, but even

Photo courtesy of John Menz. The moose cow and calf have been regular visitors around Menz’s home in Sterling for the last two weeks.

when the dogs would go out they and the moose seemed to grow used to each other, to the point where ever their younger dog, a female basenji named Sammie, didn’t feel the need to indulge any of her hunting-breed tendencies.

“She just wanted to play chase. But she knew that the moose was in trouble, she didn’t try to go after it. She was more curious than anything,” Menz said.

The cow seemed to be in poor health. She was small, only about 2 to 3 years old herself, making this calf likely her first. Menz said that she was eating fine, but didn’t seem to get much energy from her browsing, so he worried she was ill.

Menz and Menkee, a friend in the neighborhood, started “feeding” the moose, by cutting down branches and saplings of trees moose prefer to eat. It’s illegal to purposefully feed wildlife, and even negligent feeding — such as leaving food unsecured — can net a fine. But Menz and Menkee asked Fish and Game what they could and couldn’t do for the moose. Providing alfalfa or other non-natural browse is not allowed, but cutting down trees on their own property so the cow and calf could reach them is fine. So that’s what they started doing last week, with the moose chomping right through anything they cut.

“Her eyes and everything looked OK, but she wasn’t moving much — always just grazing, lying down, grazing, lying down. She’d be lying there and she’d be panting so hard, like she was ready to give labor,” Menz said. “The last day before she died she ran around here in circles, snorting and growling, like she was just trying to get her lungs to breathe. It scared me — I didn’t know what was going on — and the little calf just sat there watching her — didn’t know what was going on, either. You could see his front legs shaking.”

Bold bear draws crowd — Young bruin peeks in van on Skilak Road

By Joseph Robertia

Photos courtesy of Heidi Hanson. A young black bear put on a lengthy show for vehicles along Skilak Lake Loop Road last week. The bear didn’t seem to mind people watching it, and even approached a van bearing a load of kids on a hiking trip in the Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area. The bear walked right up to the van and circled it, leading biologists to wonder if its lack of wariness comes from the bear being fed illegally by people.

Redoubt Reporter

While there have been numerous negative encounters between bears and humans in the Anchorage area, on the Kenai Peninsula problems with bears have been few and far between this season — until last week, when children in a summer program got a firsthand lesson on bear behavior.

“It was amazing. We got nearly a half an hour with him,” said Katherine Quelland, an individual service provider with Central Peninsula Community Services.

Quelland, along with two other adults and eight children, were returning from a daylong summer outing in the Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

“We were coming back from hiking the Kenai River Overlook Trail, where we hadn’t seen any bears or signs of bears, just lots of mosquitoes,” she said.

But while driving the 19-mile gravel road that winds back to the Sterling Highway, they noticed a couple of cars pulled over not far past, fittingly enough, the Bear Mountain trailhead. Drivers and passengers were watching a young, 2- to 3-year-old black bear that had appeared from out of the woods.

“It didn’t approach the cars at all, but it seemed interested in us. It came right up to us. It was searching the van and seemed to be sticking around waiting for something,” Quelland said.

With a van load of children, it was imperative to model appropriate behavior around the bruin, and Quelland said she and the other adults instructed the kids on what to do and what not to do. Then they just sat back and enjoyed the natural spectacle.

“They were really excited, so we told them to keep their voices down and stay in their seats to watch it, and it worked out that everyone got to see it because it came around all sides of the van,” she said. “It came very close. It put its paws on the van and got up and looked in the windows. It was totally comfortable with it all and at no time did it act aggressive.”

Art Seen: Art comes to (wild)life — Summer show renders Alaska fauna in fine detail

By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter

“Two Curious Bear Cubs” by Carl Brenders.

The Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center is gearing up for its big summertime art show that opens Friday with a catered gala bash. “Alaska 2012: A Celebration of Wildlife Art” is the third time wildlife has taken center stage for the summer art show at the center.

Curated once again by Dr. David Wartinbee, who is an avid collector of wildlife art, the participating artist list reads like a who’s who in the wildlife art world. In fact, Carl Brenders has four original pieces in this exhibit — one of which was created expressly for this show and has not even been seen by his own publisher. It is called “Two Curious Bear Cubs” and is truly exquisite.

Carl Brenders is the undisputed master of this particular genre. He goes beyond realism and into a realm where the elements portrayed come alive before your eyes — every rock, every lichen, and the branches of every tree. Representing detail to a maximum, his compositional skills and color sensibilities are beyond mere talent. He uses a combination of acrylic and gouache, and literally paints every hair and twig.

On the right path to wildlife viewing

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Nothing caps a trip to the Kenai Peninsula quite like getting a good look at some of the many wildlife species that call the peninsula home. Conversely, nothing ruins an otherwise enjoyable outing like having one’s hopes set on seeing a bear, moose, sandhill crane — or, heck, a porcupine even — and striking out no matter how many places the binoculars or camera are pointed.

Though there are plenty of critters large and small, airborne and ground-bound to see, it isn’t always a sure bet to find them. Animals’ location, habitat and behavioral patterns change throughout the year. Being aware of these changes and the areas of the peninsula that provide likely wildlife habitat during certain times of year increases the odds of success in choosing where to look.

But that doesn’t mean wildlife viewers have to become experts in the peninsula’s ecology, geology and animal biology. That work has already been done, in “Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Wildlife Viewing Trail Guide.”

“The idea was to make a road-based trail where people could drive along and stop and have a guide to show them what to see at the different sites, plus bear safety, the habitats they may encounter on the Kenai Peninsula, how to see what there is, and how to view what’s there,” said Ken Tarbox, a retired Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist and one of the participants in the trail guide project.

Peek a ‘bou

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Old Duck Hunter: Thinking back on winter as spring is sprung

By Steve Meyer, for the Redoubt Reporter

This time of year is always one of mixed feelings for me. Mid-February to the end of March, at least in my mind, is second only to the September to October season when bird hunting is at its best. With the middle of February come longer days, generally warmer temperatures and, most important, settled and stable snow on which my setters can hunt.

Again, to me, there are few things in life that match being above tree line in the snow on a bright, sunny day watching these gorgeous animals work their magic. But along with being out in the backcountry comes the inevitable viewing of animals, particularly moose, that you know just are not going to make it through the winter. We may breathe that sigh of relief when we know that winter is on the downhill slide, but wild animals are a long way from breathing easy.

There are folks who tend to glorify the lives of wild animals. They believe they live out their days in a utopian existence where every day is just another walk in the outdoor wonderland that so many of us enjoy — on a part-time basis. We snowshoe or ski into places so gorgeous they defy real description, spend the day doing whatever, and then we go home to a warm house and a hot meal. Those animals you see along the way are out there 24-7. No one is cooking for them, and for many, their home is right where you saw them standing.

If you are out there enough, you run into some of the unpleasant things that happen to animals in the wild. A band of sheep caught unaware in an avalanche chute; a moose, caribou or sheep taken down by wolves or maybe coyotes; the remnants of rabbits caught and eaten by a myriad different prey animals; the carcass of birds of prey that fell to another stronger or faster prey bird; or even the untouched and frozen animals that simply could not go on any longer. All are a stark reminder that life in the wild is not what is so often portrayed in the media.

Not long ago my hunting partner and I were visiting a local taxidermy shop. You simply cannot be in these places without looking around at all of the wildlife artifacts that accumulate over the years. For most it would be a startling education of life in the wild.

Moose shot after dog attack — Incident under investigation

By Naomi Klouda

Photo courtesy of Homer Tribune. Reports of moose in distress are becoming increasingly common as winter drags on.

Homer Tribune

A moose was shot Thursday after being severely injured after being run down by a pack of dogs on Ternview Place, in Homer, resulting in citations for the dogs’ owner and an investigation.

At about 7:30 p.m. March 23, Homer Police received a call reporting the moose had been shot to put it out of its misery after the dogs attacked it. The dogs, owned by Joseph Patten, were reported to Homer Animal Control for their aggressive behavior, said Police Chief Mark Robl. Patten was issued three citations, one for each dog.

It is not automatically OK for a resident to shoot a moose, either in defense of life and property or as a mercy killing, Robl said. The matter has been referred to the Alaska State Troopers for investigation.

It was one of four moose shot in Homer in recent months.

“One of the three dogs had severely injured the moose,” Robl said. “The neighbor and gentleman with the dogs decided they needed to put it out of its misery, so the neighbor shot the moose. The dogs had been reported as aggressive in the past. A report was made to the animal control officer, who issued three citations for having dogs at large.”