Alaskan Hunter With The Ultimate Rarity Harvest: A Non-Native Mule Deer

A Southeast Alaska hunter scored the rarest of kills, a non-nartive mule deer, which may be a good thing given the concerns state officials have for the animals rarely seen in the Last Frontier, but becoming more commonplace, toward other native species.

Here are some details from the Anchorage Daily News:

The most concerning issue is the winter tick, or Dermacentor albipictus. It has yet to be documented in Alaska, but it has wiped out much of the moose population in New England and started causing problems for moose populations as far north as Canada’s Yukon and Northwest Territories.

In recent years, nearly half of the mule deer examined in the Whitehorse area were found to be tick-infested, said Dr. Kimberlee Beckmen, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s wildlife biologist. That is ominous for Alaska, she said.

“All it takes is one mule deer with one female tick on it to come into Alaska, and that would completely devastate our moose population,” Beckmen said.