A tenth of the moose taken last season by hunters in Wrangell, Petersburg and Kake ended up being confiscated by authorities. It could be for a number of reasons. But, these Southeast Alaska communities are making sure none of the meat goes to waste. 

On a Friday in December, a small crew of hunters are moving hundreds of pounds of moose meat from the public cold storage freezer into Chris Guggenbickler’s truck.

It’s his job to deliver more than 400 packages of roast and burger to individuals and organizations in town. 

This moose meat was seized by Alaska Wildlife Troopers. It could’ve been for any number of reasons: the animal was too young or didn’t have the right antler configuration. But whatever the circumstances, folks like Guggenbickler are volunteering to make sure none of it’s wasted.

“I’m just gonna drive up to the Catholic Church,” he tells his crew. “They’re going to get a lot of this.

In the church’s kitchen, a local cohort of the Alaska Native Sisterhood Association is putting together care packages for elders. 

“They’ll have moose meat, moose burger, cookies, candy canes, apples and oranges,” says Lovey Brock.

Brock, Guggenbickler, the Salvation Army and local churches met throughout the fall to figure out how any confiscated moose meat could best be distributed to the community. Of the dozen moose seized in the Wrangell, Petersburg and Kake hunting unit this past season, three went to feeding the needy in Wrangell. 

“I brought a package to one of the elders and they said they’d never gotten a package from anybody,” Brock says.

Giving this meat away isn’t new in the Southeast town. But this year, the Sitkine Sportsmen and Wrangell’s Fish and Game Advisory Committee coordinated with the magistrate, so that fines for the moose would end up paying a local butcher to process the meat. In years past, a wildlife trooper would call folks out of the blue offering a whole carcass.

Guggenbickler says someone had gotten a call that there was a moose hanging at the hoist with hide still on it.

“And the person couldn’t take care of it,” he says.

That’s a tough job for anyone. And it’s not doable for most elders and folks who don’t hunt and aren’t equipped to quarter a moose.

This year the thousand pounds of meat ultimately went to 120 individuals, plus food banks, a school lunch program and community events.

Processing the meat was the first order of business. The second was making sure any in need could get some meat. The organizing committee cross-referenced lists of who should get a roast or package of burger. Guggenbickler says that wasn’t to nitpick someone’s need, it was to add as many people as possible.

“We know that there’s gonna be people we missed. We’ve got a list we’re going to maintain and we’ll try and put people on there that we may have forgotten,” he says.

In Wrangell, leftover moose roasts will be served at a town potluck in January. That’ll offer a taste to the wider community.

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Some more adventurous hunters in Southeast Alaska are anticipating the start of moose season this month. Some will nab their prized bull, others won’t. A little over eight percent of the moose killed in this area each year don’t meet the state’s strict requirements for antler size or configuration. Wildlife troopers and communities throughout Alaska obtain these illegal moose to feed those who aren’t able to hunt. As KSTK’s June Leffler reports, sportsmen and charities in Wrangell are teaming up to improve on that process.

At a meeting of the local Fish and Game Advisory Council, a group was selected to streamline a certain protocol: How to take moose confiscated by local wildlife troopers and distribute that meat to needy folks in town.

“It’s probably the best thing I’ve heard all week,” said Mike Bates, who runs the local Salvation Army, which is known for its food bank. He’ll serve on the committee of five.

“It’s exciting to see the community pulling together for other people because there are people that have great need in the community,” Bates said.

Throughout the meeting, attendees said they wanted to “feed the needy, not the greedy.” But it’s clear, the needy include a myriad of different groups and individuals.

There’s already a process for this in place. It’s essentially a list that the trooper goes to when a moose comes in.

Chris Guggenbickler chairs the local advisory council. He doesn’t doubt that people on the list are deserving. He’s questioning if the means of distribution can actually meet their needs.

“I know there were people that have been on that list for ten years and then got a random call one day that there’s a moose hanging from the hoist,” he said.

Guggenbickler says very few people can process a moose on their own. Especially some folks on the list, like elders.

“They were certainly deserving but the program wasn’t working because of that reason,” he said.

So, the advisory council and the Stikine Sportsmen, a guys-only fundraising group, took up the issue. Just this year, Wrangell got its own wildlife trooper, so he’s helping out too.

Folks won’t randomly receive unprocessed moose anymore. Modeling the process on Petersburg’s “burger bank”, it looks like this. When a hunter is charged with killing an illegal moose, the hunter agrees to pay $300 and forfeit the meat. That money will go to pay a local butcher to process the animal. 

What isn’t in stone, is who will actually get the roughly 500 pounds of meat a single moose renders. That’s where the committee comes in. They’ll distribute that food to low-income families, seniors and Alaska Natives in the community.

Last year, 11 illegal moose were confiscated in the Petersburg, Wrangell and Kake area. The month-long season in the area starts September 15^th.

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