Apache Cookbook

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.

The animal on the cover of Apache Cookbook is a moose. The moose roams the forests of North America, Europe, and Russia. It’s the largest of the deer family, and the largest moose of all, Alces alces gigas, is found throughout Alaska. This particular moose, in fact, is so ubiquitous that it’s played an important role in the development of the state-though the relationship between moose and men is often adversarial.

Moose have a high reproductive potential and can quickly fill a range to capacity. And in Alaska, the removal of mature timber through logging and fire has benefited them by providing new stands of young timber-high-quality moose food. Moose get to be a pain when they eat crops, stand on airfields, wander the city streets, and collide with cars and trains.

But in general, these animals are good for the state’s economy. Moose are an essential part of the Alaskan landscape, providing tourist photo opportunities when they feed along the highway. Residents and out-of-state hunters harvest 6,000 to 8,000 moose annually-approximately 3.5 million pounds of meat. The future for these animals in Alaska is reasonably bright because humans are learning how to manage moose habitat with wildlife and how to mitigate factors that affect ...