Posted on 05/27/2005 7:31:38 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
KENAI NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska - The moose were impatient for their supper. As soon as the four ungulates saw biologist Tom Lohuis, they began stomping around in their stables, letting out occasional guttural moans. It was time for their final experimental meal in a five-day research project carried out next to Lohuis' log-cabin office.
"Hey, hey, hey," he said as 7-year-old Melody shoved her snout into the dish as soon as he set it down. "They know exactly what's coming."
What goes in, of course, must come out. And those droppings are of great interest at the Kenai Moose Research Center, where scientists scrutinize a species found from Alaska's deepest wilderness to patios and driveways in urban hubs like Anchorage, the state's largest city.
At this remote sanctuary, the subjects are orphaned moose raised by humans. They're used to people.
Researchers say that's why the state-run center, about 50 miles south of Anchorage, is the global leader in moose investigations. Scientists from around the world get an unprecedented close-up view of the hulking animals in their natural habitat within a four-square-mile section in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
"Almost all research done there has had a direct bearing on management of that species," said Jim Hall, deputy manager of the 1.97 million-acre refuge, which recently renewed a partnership with the state.
More than 250 research studies have been published since the center was created almost four decades ago. It's invaluable work with far-reaching benefits for Alaska's estimated 150,000 moose and other moose populations across the Northern Hemisphere, officials said.
"Moose raise a lifetime of research questions," said Lohuis, a former Laramie, Wyo., bear biologist who took over as director of the center in September 2003. "People have spent their entire careers here."
So have the half-ton subjects of studies that probe the link between nutrition and reproduction or tests gauging products such as tranquilizers and tracking monitors.
A dozen caribou also are studied at the center, but the 23 resident moose are the undisputed stars.
"These guys are hand-raised and bottle-fed," Lohuis said. "They're brought here as calves and live here their entire lives."
Which explains how you get a moose into a 9-by-12-foot enclosure — and keep it there for five days — with relative ease. Try doing that in the wild.
Corralling the animals was necessary for the recent chow fest, part of an ongoing study launched this year to look at the nutritional cost of procreation. The project is comparing Melody and Willow, two pregnant cows close to giving birth, with two nongestating females, Olivia and Isabella.
During the study period, each moose received daily 18-pound portions of pellet feed, a product developed at the center in the 1980s that contains corn, barley, soybean meal and vitamins. It's a good supplement to counter stresses such as winter, but moose can't survive on pellets alone. They need habitat found at the center, such as birch, aspen and some willow trees, fireweed and cranberry bushes.
A straight diet of processed food, however, is ideal in certain situations such as this project, in which every bit of solid and liquid waste is collected, then measured and analyzed. To prepare the moose for such drastic intestinal changes, Lohuis gradually introduced the pellet meal, mixing it with birch and aspen over three weeks until that's all the animals were eating.
"We'll look at what goes in as food minus what comes out as waste," he said. "The difference is what's required nutritionally."
Future studies will be more complete, taking place after the fall mating season, then during each trimester in the 231-day moose gestation.
The findings could give scientists a better understanding of certain management areas and whether they can support the number of moose calves they want to see, said Lohuis, whose work is closely intertwined with research on site and elsewhere in the state by two other staff biologists, John Crouse and Stacy Jenkins.
Predators and road kill can affect moose populations as well. But habitat can be equally crucial when it comes to moose, whose numbers have seen a decline in some parts of the state.
"The beauty of the situation here is that they behave like moose in the pen, they go out and forage, yet they're still available for research," Lohuis said. "It's an ideal setting. You can look at them as many times as you want."
The center has operated on that premise since it opened in 1969 as a joint venture between the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the federal government. The feds were an active research participant until the mid-1980s, when funding began drying up.
In the last few years, however, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has rejoined the effort, paying to repair aging fences and build the stalls housing Melody and other moose. Now officials are seeking money for scientific collaborations.
"We look forward to joining the state again in research," Hall said. "There's a lot of stuff we can do to benefit wildlife."
Returning to full capacity would bring the center up to par with its beginning, when research money was practically unlimited, said Al Franzmann, who ran the facility from 1972 to 1987. Those were the golden years, said Franzmann, a founding member of the North American Moose Foundation, a nonprofit support group based in Mackay, Idaho.
During Franzmann's tenure at the research center, scientists learned important lessons about their subjects. For example, they gauged the effects of overpopulation by penning 17 moose in one of the mile-square pens. Other studies showed them that it takes four times the tranquilizer drugs to down a moose than a much larger elephant.
"Working there was one of the highlights of my life," Franzmann said. "People say I stayed around moose so long that I began to look like them."
___
On the Net:
http://kenai.fws.gov
http://www.moosefoundation.org
Yup,, and FR has its fair share of these folks too. ;-)
Hmm. This gives me an idea for a study. I've always thought beer came out exactly as it went in minus the hangover. We keep that part. Any volunteers?
ungulates
What JF'n Kerry did the night he conceded the election of '04?
Not quite.
--
ungulate
Main Entry: 2ungulate
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin Ungulata, from Late Latin, neuter plural of ungulatus
: a hoofed typically herbivorous quadruped mammal (as a ruminant, swine, camel, hippopotamus, horse, tapir, rhinoceros, elephant, or hyrax) of a polyphyletic group formerly considered a major mammalian taxon (Ungulata)
Are they kidding? They think a moose in captivity has the same nutritional needs as one in the wild?
Here we go..
The things we do for science. ;-)
OK! Drink that stuff and mail the --er--um-- results;^). My address is:
Billy boy Clintoon
Somewhere in Harlem
NY,NY 696969
I'll get back to you!
I'll never complain about my job again.
At least I don't have to collect and intimately inspect Moose droppings.
a moose once bit my brother once....(I don't have a sister)
"At least I don't have to collect and intimately inspect Moose droppings."
Better a moose than a mouse.
What do I have to do?
Where's Monty Python with a skit on "The Ministry of Moose Investigations" when you need them.
It's probably eaiser to find Moose droppings than mouse droppings on the ground.
Perhaps they are potty trained.
Drink beer. Collect the results. Send it to my research org. at the address listed in one of my posts somewhere up there. I'm not sure which one. I'm busy doing research myself!
I'm all over that. Give me a few days; I might have to get a government grant to cover the beer expenses.
A moose tried to steal my son's pizza once. He found out that a quick way to get a moose to remove it's head from your car when it sticks it's head in to steal pizza, is to throw out just the crust.
And all I have to deal with are greedy squirrels!
Squirrels dig in my wife's flower beds. She calls them rat b@$t^r[)s! I've offered to do a little "house cleaning" with the 22 but she's not in favor of that.
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