Ship Creek moose permits available online only starting Tuesday

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will issue 100 permits for a bull moose hunt in the Ship Creek drainage starting at 8 am Tuesday, Oct. 6, online only at hunt.alaska.gov. The department will not hand out permits at its offices.

The hunt, RM435, is a registration hunt for one bull moose in the drainage above the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Management Area. The area, in Unit 14C, has limited access and "extremely demanding" terrain, Fish and Game said.

The season is scheduled for Oct. 25 through Nov. 30, but the department will close it by emergency order once hunters reach the harvest quota, which it will announce on or before Oct. 15. Last year the hunt closed Nov. 5, 12 days in. The closing order had set a harvest objective of no more than five bulls and counted four reported by Nov. 4.

In 2015, an emergency order closed the hunt after four days. It estimated the drainage held 199 moose, based on a 2013 aerial survey, and capped the harvest at 15 bulls to maintain the bull-to-cow ratio. That cap included six bulls taken in the fall drawing hunts, and eight more had been reported in this hunt by Oct. 27.

The hunt is open to residents and nonresidents with a valid hunting license, but not to anyone who has already taken a moose anywhere in Alaska this regulatory year or is on the department's failure-to-report list. The permit cannot be transferred.

Successful hunters must report in person to the Anchorage or Palmer Fish and Game office within three days and turn in a 5-inch section of the lower jaw.