Moose in Minnesota are dying at an alarming rate

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Moose in Minnesota are dying at an alarming rate, and biologists are racing to understand

Posted By: Susoni [Send E-Mail]
Date: Thursday, 6-Mar-2014 13:55:32

GRAND PORTAGE, Minn. — For moose, this year’s winter-long deep freeze across the Upper Midwest is truly ideal weather. The large, gangly creatures are adapted to deep snow: Their hollow fur insulates them like fiberglass does in a house. And the prolonged cold helps eradicate pests that prey on moose, like ticks and meningeal worm, or brain worm. Yet moose in Minnesota are dying at an alarming rate, and biologists are perplexed as to why.
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Mark Keech, right, a research biologist, and Tiffany Wolf, a veterinarian, fitted a moose with a radio collar and took samples as part of a Minnesota study of why the animals die.

In the 1980s, moose numbered about 4,000 in the northwest part of the state; today, there are about 100. In Northeast Minnesota, the population has dropped by half since 2006, to 4,300 from more than 8,800. In 2012, the decline was steep enough — 35 percent — that the state and local Chippewa tribes, which rely on moose meat for subsistence, called off the moose hunt. The mortality rate rebounded slightly this year, but moose continue to die at twice the normal rate to sustain a population. Researchers elsewhere, along the southern edge of moose territory in New Hampshire and Montana, are also beginning to notice declines in the animals’ numbers.

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Articles In This Thread

* Moose in Minnesota are dying at an alarming rate, and biologists are racing to understand (views: 287)
Susoni -- Thursday, 6-Mar-2014 13:55:32
o The Whole Planet is Dying and One of Two Things Need to Happen (views: 192)
CapnGriff -- Thursday, 6-Mar-2014 14:59:45
o Toxic Metals being Sprayed 24X7, not Temperatures (views: 44)
truesong -- Thursday, 6-Mar-2014 15:47:58