This thread seems to have tailed off without any real conclusion being reached, which seemed a little disappointing as Burnt Ash posted a good question; so I asked Mors if he could provide an explanation of the figure.
He says people commonly think this is a typo error, and ask whether it should have been 8 or perhaps 18, but its not a typo, it really is 80 moose a year!
The figure was reached after quite a lot of research which included questioning a group of elderly Cree on how many moose a family would take in a year under 'Ideal hunting conditions', the following needs to be taken into account when calculating the figure.
Dogs
A family of four would typically have around 8 working dogs, these are real working dogs, living outside, pulling sleds and assisting in the hunt on a daily basis. Under these work loads they consume 4 times as many calories a day than their human owners, as much as 10,000kcals a day.
Spoilage
There is obviously no refrigeration, but even with other preservative methods such as smoking quite a bit of the otherwise usable meat is lost to spoilage.
Botfly
Or more accurately the larval stage of the Botfly 'warbles', this is an interesting one that wouldn’t have occurred to me. The adult botfly lays eggs on the hairs of the Moose's lower body, which hatch and bore into the skin travelling under the skin to the back where they live until early summer before bursting through the skin, think Alien chest buster scene in miniature. This effects all the Moose to some extent and renders the hides useless for clothing, shelter, footwear etc, so at a certain time of the year ( forgot to ask exactly when, winter or autumn I assume), before the botfly have taken their toll, the native people culled a large number of animals purely for their good quality hides, often more than they could eat, so many were just skinned for the hide and left to the other animals to scavenge.
High meat consumption
Northern native peoples living an active and demanding lifestyle consumed up to 10 pounds of meat per person per day
Ideal Conditions
80 moose a year under what the Cree would consider 'Ideal conditions' in which the hunting went as well as they could have hoped for, and they had all the moose they could use (the moose provides products for a huge number of uses).
In reality a year with 'Ideal conditions' probably only occurred 3 or 4 times in an individuals life time.
I hope that helps those pondering the problem