Posted on 03/06/2014 10:57:01 AM PST by Red Badger
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. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage
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. Moose Die-Off Alarms ScientistsOCT. 14, 2013
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.
Seth Moore, a wildlife biologist in Grand Portage, theorizes that recent years of warmer, shorter winters and hotter, longer summers have resulted in a twofold problem. The changing climate has stressed out the moose, compromising their immune systems. And warmer temperatures have allowed populations of white-tailed deer, carriers of brain worm — which is fatal to moose — to thrive.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It’s also in Alaska, but that won’t stop the left from blaming her for dead moose in Minnesota.
Climate Change of course!/s
If they needed a cooler climate, why wouldn’t they head north to Canada. There is plenty of cold weather just North on Mini-so-cold. Their own rhetoric shows their stupidity!
I’m going with fracking and global warming for 400, Alex.
Its all that cheese and sister biting I’ll bet.
The lack of affordable health care, and a reluctance to raise the minimum wage.
Biting sister with brain worms, maybe..................
Here In Northeast Ohio we have had less than a handful of days with high temperatures above 32 deg since Thanksgiving. That is highly unusual for us. Also the Great Lakes are almost completely frozen over, not the least bit ‘normal’. .
LOL!.............
OMG! SHE KILLED RUDOLPH!...................
“The lack of affordable health care, and a reluctance to raise the minimum wage. “
LOL!
As mean and vicious a honey badger is, I don’t think they are going to take down a moose................
Uhh, Boris Badanoff and Natasha?
He don’t care. *SMIRK*
This
Here is Wisconsin the wolf population is way higher than the DNR claims. They are out there and they have to eat. I too would like to see the numbers comparing moose and wolf numbers over the period in question.
Maybe my sister decided to bite back...
But that would also necessarily imply a drop in the squirrel population.
If Minnesota is having a very cold winter with deep, drifting snow the the wolves will dine well on moose. On crusted wind-blown snow a wolf can glide over the snow while the moose has to plow through it. Wolves always dine best in winter.
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