Roadkill moose fed Alaska families for years. Then came COVID-19
Matt Vasilogambros
It always broke Laurie Speakman’s heart to hear that another moose was struck and killed on the rural highway near her home in Soldotna, Alaska, on the western end of the Kenai Peninsula. But it also warmed her to know that several local families were about to get fed.
For the past eight years, Speakman, lovingly called “The Moose Lady” by her friends and neighbors, was one of the people state troopers called at all hours of the night as a volunteer driver for the nonprofit Alaska Moose Federation. Often in below-zero temperatures, she drove to the crash site in her truck, wrapped a cable around the enormous ungulate and lifted the carcass onto the flatbed with a remote-controlled winch. Then she delivered the hundreds of pounds of fresh, high-protein meat to area charities that distributed it to low-income, disabled, older-adult and Alaska Native households.