Alaska Moose Mamas count surprising success in first year: 100 percent calf survival

Last year, Alaska Moose Mamas intern Montanna Zajac spent her entire summer camped out in a donated RV in Bear Valley with no electricity or running water, going out at least seven times a day to feed five abandoned and orphaned moose calves and keep them safe from predators.

Four of those calves were released near Beluga Lake in Southcentral Alaska last August (the fifth died after an unexpected reaction to medication and vitamins just before release). Based on recent history, their odds of survival were not great. 

While moose calves were successfully reintroduced near Cordova in the 1940s — a harvestable population exists there now — a recent effort by the Alaska Moose Federation to do the same failed. Of the 28 calves the Alaska Moose Federation collected between 2011 and 2014, only 10 were released. Of those, only two are believed to have survived through the first winter.

So this spring, when Zajac, 22, returned and had the chance to assist on a flight to prove that the moose were still alive, she took it.

When the radio-monitors picked up the tracking signals of the four surviving yearlings, "Hearing that beeping noise was like hearing a heartbeat," she said.

Those animals' survival was verified by independent surveys from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Executive Director Dana DeBernardi founded Moose Mamas in 2015. Before that she was a volunteer with the moose federation. The moose federation program faced backlash for accepting $1.8 million in legislative grants to rescue and relocate orphaned moose calves, with hardly any success to show for it.

The Moose Federation subsequently abandoned its calf-raising efforts and, after an operational hiatus, narrowed its focus to roadkill pick-ups.

[Related: Controversy lingers over Moose Mamas' mission to raise orphaned calves]

DeBernardi said the key to her organization's survival rate is quality of calf care and the location of release. All four moose were healthy, weighing more than 200 pounds each, and disease-free after their time in captivity.

The calves were also released within Fish and Game management unit 16B. The area has both brown and black bear predator control programs in place — though sparingly used — and may have led to less predation for the released moose.

Another factor? Maybe a little luck, according to Tony Kavalok, assistant director of the state division of wildlife conservation, who monitors the program for Fish and Game. 

He noted that several of the calves were caught later in the summer, when they were bigger and had been more exposed to wild interactions with other moose. It also helped that the last winter was mild with little snow.

"But the jury is still out," he said. "It's only been one year."

But DeBernardi isn't giving up. As of Thursday, the organization was caring for five more calves. Still a bright orangish-red and weighing from 60 to 80 pounds, the calves — named Lego, Elvis, Nemo, Carl and Hayden — spend their days in the Bear Valley facility, being bottle fed by interns and munching on browse collected from volunteers.

Fish and Game gave at least three other moose to Moose Mamas for rehabilitation this summer.  Two died from their injuries shortly after arriving. Another was rehabilitated but was deemed unsuitable for release and sent to a wildlife sanctuary in Haines. 

Money is tight. Moose Mamas received the last $8,000 of the $1.8 million legislative grant allocated for the Alaska Moose Federation calf program but it all went to paying veterinarians, according to DeBernardi. Now she's operating solely on donations, ones she said come in small increments of $5 to $10 at a time.

But she's tried to make do. An abandoned trailer DeBernardi found on the side of the road was converted into a formula cook shack. She found another small flatbed trailer in woods with a "tree growing right through it" that now holds a fresh-water tank. The calves are fed formula in recycled plastic soda and juice bottles.

It costs $600 in formula to feed one calf for the season. DeBernardi declined to say specifically how much money it costs to run the organization, only that it was "shoestring." DeBernardi and the interns do not receive paychecks. An Amazon wish list that allows supporters to buy wildlife formula and other feeding supplies has been indispensable, she said.

DeBernardi said that finances have been so difficult that the utilities at her own home have been turned off and she'll likely have to find a new place to live soon.

But raising calves is a passion that drives her. She said it's hard to describe the feeling of watching the moose calves walk into the sunset, finally strong enough to be on their own. She hopes they not only survive but thrive.

"That's the money shot — when you see a moose with a collar with her twins," she said. "Then we're the moose grandmas."