Caribou, Deer, Elk & Moose - Sounds Wild
Juneau Moose

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Juneau moose

A moose stands beside Backloop road in Juneau's Mendenhall Valley. A car passes, and the moose crosses the road as a second car approaches. There's no danger, but the driver is astonished. Her first thought is that it's a horse. A moose in the road is nothing to write home about in most areas of Alaska, but it's unheard of in Juneau. Until this Late September morning in 2016, there were no moose in Juneau.

Even in the 21st century, Southeast Alaska is still emerging from the last ice age. The land is rising from the sea, and new habitat is being colonized by plants and animals. Access corridors along the coast and down river valleys enable animals like moose to colonize this new habitat. Moose moved down the Chilkat Peninsula from the Haines area and colonized the Gustavus forelands near Glacier Bay in the middle of the 20th century.

Moose from the Copper River Valley were introduced to Berners Bay about 60 miles north of Juneau in the 1950s. A small population established, and around 2010 people started seeing moose at the end of the Juneau Road System, about 40 miles north of town. Some of those animals have worked their way into drainages closer to town. In September and October of 2016, that young bull moose was seen and photographed a half a dozen times in the well-populated Mendenhall Valley north of Downtown Juneau.