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Soldotna students get hands-on moose harvest experience

Published 8:30 am Thursday, January 8, 2026

By Chloe Anderson

Soldotna High School students learn how to prepare moose meat through the school’s annual Moose Permit Project, an educational partnership between SoHi and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Blades/Soldotna High School
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Soldotna High School students learn how to prepare moose meat through the school’s annual Moose Permit Project, an educational partnership between SoHi and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Blades/Soldotna High School

Soldotna High School students learn how to prepare moose meat through the school’s annual Moose Permit Project, an educational partnership between SoHi and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Blades/Soldotna High School
Photo courtesy of Tabitha Blades/Soldotna High School Soldotna High School students prepare moose meat in Christopher Towne’s culinary arts class on Dec. 15. A partnership between SoHi and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game provides real-world, hands-on experience by walking students through every step of the harvesting process.
Soldotna High School students in Christopher Towne’s culinary arts classes enjoy a hard-earned meal on Dec. 15<ins>, 2025</ins> after experiencing the process of safely and responsibly harvesting a moose. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Blades/Soldotna High School
Soldotna High School students learn to prepare moose meat as part of the harvesting process in Christopher Towne’s culinary arts classes starting Dec. 1<ins>, 2025</ins>. Photo courtesy of Tabitha Blades/Soldotna High School

Soldotna High School students weren’t moose-ing around during the school’s recent annual interdisciplinary moose permit project. The program allowed students in anatomy and physiology, environmental science and culinary arts classes to participate in every stage of a moose harvest, all the way from wildlife stewardship to culinary uses.

The project is an educational collaboration between SoHi and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, aiming to teach students to harvest moose safely and sustainably.

“The whole process is for the educational purpose of place based-learning,” said SoHi principal Tabitha Blades. “What is it to live in Alaska and to utilize Alaska’s resources?”

Teachers Phil Leck and Christopher Towne spearheaded the two-week-long process. In his environmental science and anatomy and physiology classes, Leck taught students how to conduct an ethical harvest by first examining biological systems and making conservation-based decisions. On Nov. 28, he and a small group of students shot and killed the moose under the permit Leck applied for.

The carcass was hoisted up in a temperature-controlled unit the next day, and it hung there until students finished butchering it on Dec. 12. Under Towne’s instruction, students learned how to process, preserve and prepare a portion of the moose in culinary class. According to Blades, the leftover meat was ground up and sent home with students.

After the harvest was complete, students submitted a formal educational moose report to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“Soldotna High School’s report is hands down the best report we get each year,” ADF&G wildlife biologist Stephanie Samaniego said. “We truly love seeing the pictures and I personally like reading the comments from the students. These permits are highly regulated, and it is these types of reports that really advocate for continuing to authorize them.”

Roughly 100 students participated in the process, and Blades said it’s the highlight of the school year for many.

Students said the project was incredibly rewarding. Peyton Goforth, a senior, called it “one of the coolest things I have possibly ever done throughout high school.”

“I thought this was one of, if not the absolute best, labs a school could hold because of how involving it is for each student,” said Titus Watts, a junior. “It teaches kids things they will most likely do in their lifetime and shows the Alaskan hunting culture.”

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