Two bulls close the bow-only moose hunt at Eklutna Lake, with hunters still out

Two bulls came out of the Eklutna Lake country this week, and that was enough to end the season. Bowhunters holding an RM445 permit have to stop at the end of Friday, one animal short of the three-bull ceiling, because the Alaska Department of Fish and Game does not want more taken while hunters are still out there.

This is a bow-and-arrow hunt, by permit only, in the drainages of the Eklutna River and Eklutna Lake above the Glenn Highway. Everything in that country is bow-only — moose, black bear, brown bear, sheep, small game — which is what happens when the backcountry in question sits inside Chugach State Park about an hour from downtown Anchorage.

The herd there was estimated at 70 animals in 2023. Three bulls was the ceiling, set to hold the bull-to-cow ratio steady and keep the population inside the department's objective for Unit 14(C). Two bulls is under 3 percent of the herd.

It is also a lot of meat. A bull in prime condition runs 1,200 to 1,600 pounds and stands nearly six feet at the shoulder, and Fish and Game figures a 1,600-pound animal dresses out around 950 pounds and yields roughly 500 pounds of meat. Two of them is about half a ton, packed out of state park backcountry on somebody's back.

Anchorage area wildlife biologist Cory Stantorf signed the closure. "There are still hunters in the field," the order says. Every other moose season in Unit 14 is unaffected.

The Eklutna Lake hunt has been shut down this way before, including in 2016 and 2011.