The Alaska Moose Mamas have a singular mission: to raise orphaned urban moose calves and release them into rural areas of the state suffering from flagging moose populations.
In the process, the group is trying to shake associations with its occasionally troubled predecessor, the Alaska Moose Federation, but an intertwined history and a similar mission have made that a challenge. And the nascent organization is also dealing with an ongoing debate about whether Alaska's wildlife should be nurtured by humans or left to fend for itself.
Alaska Moose Mamas executive director Dana DeBernardi is going with the former. She believes it's wasteful to let abandoned moose calves die on the sides of roads. She ardently believes in the Alaska Constitution provision that requires maximizing natural resources.
To her, the idea behind raising moose calves is not that Alaska's urban areas don't have enough -- she believes they do -- but that the issue is a geographical problem, with moose in rural parts of the state in decline or gone altogether.
"I'm tired of people fighting over the last moose," she said. "I just want to grow more moose."
The Moose Mamas consist of a small crew of interns setting up a care facility at a secluded location in Anchorage's Bear Valley. They're gearing up for their first full season of raising calves, with a goal of releasing them. The hope is those calves will grow into adults and potentially repopulate an area enough for hunting.
DeBernardi and others point out that it's already been done. A repopulation effort in Cordova in the 1940s eventually led to a harvestable population.
But critics of calf raising point out that the cost of rehabilitating the moose is high, the odds of releasing any significant number low and chances of introducing disease into wild populations significant. The Alaska Moose Federation received $1.8 million in legislative grants in 2011 and 2012 specifically for calf relocation efforts. From 2010 to 2014, AMF took in 28 animals and released 10 into the wild.
Of those, it's believed two released in 2011 survived past the first year. Tony Kavalok, assistant director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation, said it's unclear if there were others. While some were found dead, others lost their radio collars and were not accounted for.
Critics also point out that moose in Alaska are generally not in decline. Tens of thousands of moose calves are born in Alaska each year, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. First-year survival rates for calves in areas with low predation range from 30 and 60 percent. Their chances of survival are slim during the first few weeks of life but improve over time, especially when they're cared for by a cow.
DeBernardi knows there are critics of her program. But she wants to distance herself from what she calls the "drama" of the Alaska Moose Federation. She points out that despite its ties to the AMF, her organization is new -- with a new location, separate nonprofit status, new veterinarian and its own board of directors. She operates on a donation basis and told an Alaska Dispatch News reporter she has no intentions of ever asking the state for funding.
"People say (moose reintroduction) will never happen," she said. "Well, you never know unless you try."
The road to calf raising
The Moose Mamas' calves are held under a "temporary possession -- orphaned moose permit" that allows the group not only to raise them but to eventually release them under the guidance of Fish and Game's Division of Wildlife Conservation. It's the only permit of its kind in Alaska.
The facility is permitted to hold up to six calves at a time, according to Kavalok. DeBernardi said the group could eventually care for 30 animals or more if the need exists.
Fish and Game carefully monitors the operation. It must approve any moose the Moose Mamas take in and where the calves are released. The permit outlines which veterinarians are allowed to care for the animals and standards for reporting. An additional agreement with the organization specifies what kind of pens the moose may be kept in and what kind of foods they can eat, among other provisions.
According to Kavalok, when an orphaned calf is found, depending on need, it can be sent to either in-state or Outside zoos or animal preserves. Other Alaska facilities, such as the Alaska Zoo and Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, can care for orphaned calves but cannot release them back into the wild. When those spaces are filled, the agency turns to the Moose Mamas.
DeBernardi admits that raising moose calves is challenging. Abandoned calves often arrive malnourished, dehydrated or injured. Raising them requires around-the-clock surveillance and a specialized diet.
So far this year, Moose Mamas has cared for four calves, with only one still living.
That calf is Esther, a now-3-week-old, reddish-brown calf with spindly legs. She is the first calf the group received and, so far, the healthiest. DeBernardi said she's still skittish, a good sign for eventual release.
DeBernardi doesn't know how Esther became separated from her mother, but she was picked up after she was seen wandering off the Glenn Highway near Eagle River. She was deemed a traffic hazard, so the calf -- just 1 week old at the time -- was picked up by the Moose Mamas on May 28, hours after the Fish and Game permit that allowed them to raise the moose was approved
Over the following days, three other calves arrived in poor health. Two were malnourished after being abandoned for days, and attempts to heal them under veterinary supervision were unsuccessful.
The other had a broken leg and other physiological problems. DeBernardi and her staff splinted the leg so it might heal, but she suspects the moose, a female named Hope, was probably hit by a car and had suffered other trauma.
"It felt like a triage center," DeBernardi said of Moose Mamas' early weeks.
The sudden influx of calves also came while she was trying to pull the whole facility together.
DeBernardi insists that the exact location, despite a locked gate and being invisible from the road, not be revealed, for fear curious members of the public might want to peek at the young moose. In order for relocation to work, the calves must have limited human contact.
"It has to be private. You don't want to turn it into a zoo," DeBernardi said in a phone interview last month.
The facility isn't fancy. DeBernardi's interns stay on site in a donated 1980s motorhome connected to a generator and with an outhouse behind it. One groundskeeper stays in a four-person tent pitched between a plywood shed and a trailer for hauling the calves, still emblazoned with the Alaska Moose Federation logo.
Complicated history
DeBernardi said she felt called to raise moose after she began volunteering with the Alaska Moose Federation in 2014. She said she spent years doing a number of jobs -- catering, stay-at-home mom, marketing and even owning a high-end used clothing store -- but none inspired her as much as her work with calves.
She thinks it might have something to do with her family. Her uncle Bruce Johnson also worked in conservation. He was instrumental in reintroducing a wild turkey population in northwest Colorado.
He died in a motorcycle accident in Utah in 2004. DeBernardi said her work is a way to continue her family's passion for conservation.
She said that when AMF decided to move away from rearing calves and run the moose salvage program -- collecting road-kill moose and distributing the meat appropriately -- she felt ready to take over the calf-rearing portion of AMF's mission.
"It morphed from 'how can I help (AMF)?' to 'I think I should do this,' " she said.
DeBernardi is fiercely trying to distance herself from the federation but it's hard not to note the history between the two. DeBernardi still uses the same phone number listed for AMF, fencing and other equipment at her Hillside facility are AMF leftovers, and several members of her board of directors are former AMF members.
It's unclear where the Alaska Moose Federation stands. Executive director Gary Olson declined to comment when reached last week, saying he had resigned from the organization. Robert "Moose" Henrich, chairman of the AMF board of directors, said he did not know that Olson had resigned but said the organization was still moving forward with roadkill collection and other enhancement work.
Moving forward
With its permits secured, Moose Mamas appears to have Fish and Game's approval.
"They provide a resource, in terms of whether it's AMF or Moose Mamas, that's willing to raise calves -- the handful we aren't able to place -- that would otherwise be put down," said Kavalok of the Division of Wildlife Conservation. "There is a desire by folks in Alaska -- some people -- that want to see moose calves given an opportunity to be restored to the wild after some period they're deemed fit to do so, rather than putting them down when there's no zoo space or wildlife park.
"The public has asked for that in the past, and this organization and AMF before it have stepped in to take that role," he said.
Kavalok said moose calves have a high mortality rate even under the best conditions. For example, just feeding them can be a challenge. He said little things like not holding the bottle in the right position can mean the calf will have difficulties digesting the food, leading to serious physiological issues later.
There's also a question of how much contact moose calves can safely have with people. Too much and the moose become accustomed to human interaction, leading to possibly dangerous encounters in the future.
"I think there is a line there that can be crossed," Kavalok said of the calves having too much familiarity with humans. "No one knows what that is."
Former AMF veterinarians Bob and Dianne Hutchinson have issues with the levels of interaction between the Moose Mamas volunteers and the calves.
Dianne Hutchinson said in a phone interview Monday that she stepped away from five years of raising moose when DeBernardi took over the operation last summer. Hutchinson said AMF's permit limited the amount of human interaction the calves could have, but that under DeBernardi, the operation became a "revolving door" of people coming to see the animals.
DeBernardi said she understands those concerns but makes an effort to keep people away from the facility, carefully guarding its location and keeping only a small staff on hand.
Hutchinson also had concerns about Michelle Oakley, the new veterinarian based in Canada's Yukon territory and the star of the Nat Geo Wild reality TV show "Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet." Oakley began overseeing the Moose Mamas program after the Hutchinsons left, with the reality show filming the release of two Moose Mamas calves last year.
Hutchinson said raising calves is time-consuming and requires daily check-ins from veterinarians, difficult for a vet based in another country.
"That's a huge deal if a vet isn't checking the calves on a regular basis," she said.
Former Anchorage-area wildlife biologist and Alaska Dispatch News columnist Rick Sinnott isn't opposed to the idea of wildlife reintroduction. He pointed to the recent reintroduction of wood bison in the Innoko River area as a lesson in how to do things properly.
Sinnott noted that wood bison had years of strict oversight. Despite Fish and Game monitoring the Moose Mamas, he worried that any private organization stepping in to care for the calves could operate on a shoestring, potentially harming calves and risking the possibility of introducing disease into a wild population.
Sinnott, who worked for years in the Anchorage area, understands wanting to be compassionate toward the calves. But if only one or two calves are being released at a time, with a low chance of survival to begin with, is it worth it?
"It's such a drop in the bucket," he said. "There are no population benefits, but a possibility you might add disease. Why take the risk?"
Dianne Hutchinson maintains that releasing calves into the wild can be done successfully, especially with limited human contact.
"It comes down to different views," Hutchinson said. "We wanted (the moose) released back into the wild; the Moose Federation wanted to make money and get on television."
Former Dall sheep biologist and longtime AMF supporter Wayne Heimer hasn't seen the new operation but said he endorses the idea of the Moose Mamas. He's long been supportive of the idea of reintroducing moose into the Alaska wilderness, though he recognizes that hasn't always been the stance of Fish and Game officials.
He thinks it comes down to a fundamental difference between biologists who believe nature should be left to nature and those who believe that humans intervening in a natural habitat have a responsibility to maintain it.
Heimer admitted that the 10 moose released by the Alaska Moose Federation in its years of operation was a low number, but he noted that change takes time.
"They're trying to change the culture of the department (of Fish and Game) and they can't do it," Heimer said. "Those cultural things like that are a little bit fussy."
DeBernardi says she wants to focus on raising calves and the cultural and food-security benefits relocations can bring to Alaska.
"This is Alaska, this is a little bit different," she said, referring to how Alaskans utilize wildlife. "For villages without grocery stores, this is aisle five."