Prescribed fire in the Nelchina Basin: a case study for managing moose population

Abstract

The Nelchina Basin, located west of Glenallen, AK provides important moose Alces alces habitat throughout the year. However, previous research in this area has shown that the moose populations appear to be nutritionally limited by the available forage. The Nelchina Basin was deemed an intensive management unit to increase moose populations through predator control efforts and prescribed fires to increase the amount of available forage, including the 2004 Alphabet Hills fire. We quantified the available digestible energy (DE) and digestible protein (DP) during the summer of 2018 and 2019, as well as the winter in between, and availability of forages for moose within the burn perimeter and the adjacent unburned forest during the summer of 2019. We found that total canopy cover of the primary forage species was lower in the burned areas than in the adjacent unburned forest habitats, but only by 1%. Summer DP was significantly impacted by burn/unburn, caused by a 6% difference between the burn (avg = 2.58%) and the forest (avg = 2.43%). We also found a significant difference in DE and DP across the two sampling years. Although others have shown a positive effect of wildfire for herbivore populations, we found that the Alphabet Hills fire may not have made as much of a positive impact as in other systems. This project highlights the importance of research that quantifies both the availability of and the quantity of available food resources for herbivores.