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Updated: June 2, 2025
In Alaska, our ever thoughtful and forehanded Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture has by legal proclamation at one stroke converted the whole of the Kenai Peninsula into a magnificent moose preserve. This will save Alces gigas, the giant moose of Alaska, from extermination; and New Brunswick and the Minnesota preserve will save Alces americanus.
The range of the moose in North America extends from Nova Scotia in the extreme east, throughout Canada and certain of the Northern United States, to the limits of tree growth in the west and north of Alaska. Throughout this vast extent of territory but two species are recognized, the common moose, Alces americanus, and the Alaska moose, Alces gigas, of the Kenai Peninsula.
We looked with envious eyes on Montague Island as we passed it in Prince William Sound, for we were told that the natives avoid fishing and shooting here, claiming that the big Montague brown bear are larger and fiercer than any others. Our boat made a brief call at Homer, in Cook Inlet, one of the starting points for the famous Kenai shooting grounds.
Great banks of snow lay in many of the highest passes, and over all the landscape the sun shone faintly through leaden and sombre storm clouds. Such was my first near view of the Kenai Mountains, and, as I learned to know them better, they seemed to grow more awe-inspiring and beautiful.
We took a boat from Seward and sailed to Seldie, then to Kenai Peninsula. Here we hunted for two solid weeks and found practically no signs of brownies. "I decided at the end of this period to waste no more time, but to pull out of the country and sail back to Seward.
These specimens also differ from the eastern moose in the same manner as does the Kenai Peninsula animal, except in the antlers, which approximate to those of the type species. I have no doubt that the moose on the mainland along Cook Inlet will prove to be identical with those of the Kenai Peninsula itself, but how far their range extends we have at present no means of knowing.
What the limits of the range of the Alaska moose are, may not be known for some years. Specimens obtained in the autumn of 1902 from the headwaters of the Stikine River in British Columbia, appear to resemble closely, in their large size and dark coloration, the moose of the Kenai Peninsula. The antlers, however, are much smaller.
"Kadiak Island was once near the mainland," said Kalitan. "There was only the narrowest passage of water, but a great Kenai otter tried to swim the pass, and was caught fast. He struggled so that he made it wider and wider, and at last pushed Kadiak way out to sea." "He must have been a whopper," said Ted, "to push it so far away. Is that the island?" "Yes," said his father.
On September 17 we packed up and moved down the lake several miles, where we made another base of supplies, for we were now going upon the moose range. The rutting season of the moose begins on the Kenai Peninsula about the 15th of September, and lasts, roughly speaking, for one month.
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