BIG LAKE -- The moose emerged like a magic trick onto the Parks Highway.
Ungainly and spooked, the young ungulate high-stepped across the busy highway to the safety of an icy lot near VCA Big Lake Animal Hospital, barely avoiding a collision with a Subaru.
Not all Valley drivers -- or moose -- are so lucky.
As of this month, the number of moose-vehicle collisions in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough since June are up by 25 percent, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That's based on a 5-year average.
Mat-Su is the only populated part of the state where numbers are significantly up, biologists say.
Especially unusual: a spike in collisions over the summer, when numbers normally drop.
Wildlife biologist Todd Rinaldi, based in Fish and Game's Palmer office, credits the past few warm winters for the summer bump in moose strikes as well as a more functional problem: with little snow on the ground, the contrast between moose and the surrounding brown landscape is lower, making it difficult for drivers to spot the animals before they get to the road.
"These moose are popping up really fast," Rinaldi said.
The Alaska Moose Federation heads up the state's roadkill moose salvage program. The federation has probably picked up around 400 moose since October, 60 percent or more in Mat-Su, according to executive director Don Dyer.
Fish and Game statistics show the five-year average is 268 moose collisions annually on Mat-Su roads, Rinaldi said. Since July, there have already been 308.
Statistically, the most significant factor in the above-average number of moose hit on Mat-Su roads started a few winters ago when low-snow winters helped moose populations rise as more survived the normally tough season to produce calves, he said. That led to higher numbers of moose roaming the Mat-Su.
Drivers are encountering moose all over, not just in the usual high-collision corridors.
"Starting in June and July what we saw was a pretty high spike in moose collisions," Rinaldi said. "Based on a five-year average, we're looking at a 60, 70, 80 percent increase in moose-vehicle collisions in the summer months."
Then the region saw some snowfall in early winter, driving moose down from higher terrain, especially in the Susitna Valley from Willow to Talkeetna, he said. Farther south, a major draw for the animals is the area of the 30,000-acre Big Lake fire, also known as the Millers Reach fire, that's now regrown with willow, alder and birch.
The Alaska Board of Game decided that moose in the Valley are so abundant that the state holds short-term "targeted" hunts in four areas and just added a fifth in the Willow-Talkeetna area to kill them in high-traffic spots, Rinaldi said. Hunts have taken about 80 moose.
Fish and Game approves four hunters every week in the established areas: Knik-Goose Bay Road; Glenn Highway between Palmer and Chickaloon; Parks Highway in the Houston-Big Lake area; and the area of Schrock and Pittman roads.
Along with habitat reasons, some drivers blame road salt for drawing moose to area roads.
Randall Kowalke, a Mat-Su Assembly member, hit a moose in December near his home north of Willow on the Parks Highway and brought up the salt attraction. He's heard from several friends who spotted moose kneeling along the roadway, ostensibly to lick salt.
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities adds a small amount of salt to the sand used on some state-maintained roads to keep the sand from freezing and caking, according to agency spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy.
DOT does use a mild salt brine mix around freezing temperatures to prevent ice from forming on Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula roads, McCarthy said. Kenai has done it for a number of years but this was the first winter the salt solution was applied to Anchorage roads.
It's not used in Mat-Su, she said.
The Mat-Su borough uses a 10 percent salt mixture with road sand on paved roads, according to public works director Terry Dolan. The amount applied to roads varies based on weather and which road-service contractor is applying it, Dolan said. Some northern areas around Talkeetna and Trapper Creek can't afford it so salted sand and rock chips are used only during emergency road conditions, he said. Borough contracts elsewhere call for road serration -- cutting grooves in ice or snow -- to increase traction before using salted sand.
"So we minimize the amount of salted sand we use, not because of moose but because it is expensive," Dolan wrote in an email.