This is not the average tourist story but, if you’re interested in more than what tourists see and learn about Alaska, here’s a story for you. It’s an extremely imaginative way to take care of two problems at once: hunger and road kill. These are not my words, I did not write this but heard about this practice which piqued my curiosity and I did some research on it on line and found these two articles.
1 person out of 7 in Alaska is food insecure, meaning that 14% of the population of Alaska does not know where their next meal is coming from. Now, this is the same average for Ameria as a whole. But, Alaska has solved this problem in a most imaginative way.
This next article is from outsideonline.com.
Alaska Has a Moose Roadkill Problem
With state funds dwindling, what to do with a thousand pounds of mammal on the roadway, blocking traffic and attracting scavengers like bears? Tow the carcass out and deliver it to the needy.
By: Lisa Maloney /.article-author Apr 25, 2016
There are an estimated 175,000 to 200,000 moose in Alaska. The animals are a constant presence—even in urban areas—and they get hit by cars all the time, usually around dawn and dusk, when both the animals and commuters are most active. From July 2011 to June 2012, the most recent year for which the Alaska Department of Transportation has hard data, nearly 800 moose were hit by cars around the state. Car-moose collisions can happen literally anywhere, even in the heart of the state's only large city, Anchorage, but they're most common where brushy habitat meets water sources along high-speed highways. Only about one quarter of one percent are fatal for the people involved. Occasionally a moose will walk away too, but most of the time it either dies on the spot or has to be put down by first responders.
Until about six months ago, you were likely to see a civilian butchering that moose on the side of the road—sometimes in the road. That’s where the Moose Federation comes in. Since 2008, the Federation has helped in a limited capacity, dispatching drivers in flatbed pickups with winches to quickly remove whole moose carcasses from roadways and deliver them to the next names on the list for butchering. But in late August of 2015 the federation was awarded a $300,000 contract for handling roadkill salvage in four population centers: Anchorage, the Mat-Su Valley, the Kenai Peninsula, and Fairbanks. For the first time ever, there's a single entity responsible for collecting the bulk of the roadkill moose on the contiguous road system.
On the morning I waited in my car for the agitated mother moose to move on, I got out of my car to approach her calf's dead body. It lay draped over the edge of a curb, across a bike lane, sporadically illuminated by the swirling lights of a police car that had arrived on the scene. The officer didn't know what had hit it but, judging by a couple of broken legs and relatively little damage to the body, it was probably a small car.
Phillip Sneed, a young Air Force policeman from nearby Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson made quick work of recovering the calf’s body when he arrived in his flatbed pickup truck.* He secured the winch cable around the calf's head, hooked a detachable ramp onto the edge of the bed, and up the body went.
Volunteers like Sneed track down animals that sometimes stagger into the woods to die after the collision, wrangle the bodies onto trucks, dodge fast-moving traffic and angry mother moose when a calf is involved, and deal with curious bystanders—at all hours of day and night. But the reward is worth it. "The thing that really motivates the volunteers is delivering food to people, and how excited the people are when we show up with a moose," Dyer says.
It's hard to quantify the impact that receiving a moose carcass can have on a family. But in a state where roughly one in seven people are deemed "food insecure" and the number of families struggling to make it from month to month is continuously on the rise, the 350 or so pounds of meat you'd get from a good-size cow can make a huge difference. Dyer told me that over the last six months, two recipients have thrown their arms around his drivers and sobbed with relief, explaining that they'd been down to the very last bit of food in the house until the moose carcass arrived.
And, here’s some lines from an application from Anchor Point, AK that you must fill in to get a call to come and pick up a dead moose. On the first page you must fill in your name, address, number of people in your home and other factual information. Then there is the contract, the stipulations that you must agree to before you get called to come to remove a moose from the public roadways.
‘I hereby make application to the State of Alaska, Department of Public Safety, to be called as a recipient of road killed moose (or other fish or game that may be available).
I understand that this means that I could be called to respond to the road kill at ANY hour of the day, possibly many miles away. I understand that I must be able to reach the road kill animal within and no longer than 30 minutes from the call.
I understand that I MUST BE PREPARED WHEN SUBMITTING THIS APPLICATION to be able to respond upon receiving the road kill notification. I agree to respond and remove the carcass from the roadway or private property as soon as possible.
I understand that if a road kill bear is received, I am responsible for the return of the hide, skull and claws to the State of Alaska Department of Fish & Game within a reasonable amount of time after salvaging the edible meat.
I understand that if a moose is received, I am responsible for the return of the front six (6) inches of the lower jaw, with teeth intact, and a femur (upper leg bone of hind leg) to the State of Alaska Department of Fish & Game within a reasonable amount of time after salvaging the edible meat.
I understand that I am not guaranteed to receive a full-grown moose: that the moose could be a calf or could have significant damage, and that I will salvage what I can.
Alaska law dictates that no part of the animal will be left on the road or on the right of way. I agree to remove the viscera (guts) and other animal parts from the roadway and as far out of sight as practical. I will not leave remains on private property.’
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