Alaska is on pace to have twice as many moose die from being struck by cars and trains than in a typical year, an article in the Anchorage Daily News says. Deeper-than-typical snow cover is luring the moose on to plowed roads and railroad tracks, where walking is easier, so they burn fewer calories.

Read the article from the Anchorage Daily News here.

Some 600 moose have been killed by cars and trains in just the south-central region of state this winter, says another Anchorage Daily News article. That article says that the Department of Fish and Game issued a permit to the Alaska Moose Federation to feed the moose hay, and to create trails between natural feeding areas in an attempt to keep the moose out of the roads and off the railroad tracks.

The issue is public safety, the article says. Alaska has plenty of moose, but the danger to human life and property from moose collisions is severe.

Read much more about the Alaska moose-in-roads issue in the outdoors column of the Alaska Dispatch. This lengthy article is filled with details about the moose feeding action, including Norway’s very different take on the problem, and offers links to articles in the Los Angeles Times and Charleston Gazette that had a “save the moose” angle.

Photo: This moose was photographed in the parking lot of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Anchorage office in 2006. Photo by Ronald Laubenstein, courtesy of the USFWS