Summary

Description

Aerial counts in fall, winter, and spring by Department biologists and by biologists of cooperating agencies U.S. Forest Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided information on the productivity, abundance, and sex and age composition of various moose populations in Alaska. Movements, survival rates, and peak of calving were studied by tagging newborn calves with the aid of helicopters and light aircraft. Collection of mandibles and reproductive tracts, and mandibles and skulls from tagged animals, aided studies of fertility, productivity, age determination techniques, and movements. A mandatory harvest ticket report instituted in 1963 provided the first insight into magnitude, chronology and locality of annual harvest. Natural mortality was recorded along certain, highways near urban areas and along the Alaska Railroad. An inventory of range types in the Matanuska and Lower Susitna River Valleys was inaugurated.