Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 50% of Minnesota's Moose Calves Dead Within 7 Days

so would it be fair to say then, that your preference is to let the moose go down the drain rather than making an effort to save them that may have limited effects on wolves? The wolf area is much bigger than the moose area. wolves are expanding all over, which has been extremely well documented. There is no concern at all about bears.

No, that would not be fair to say. Nor is it what I DID say.

Why no concern about bears by the way? Are they not moose calf predators for some reason? Why is it that bears always get the pass? Interesting

Nice to hear a debate on 24 hr. This is my limited experience since I'm from Green and gold country. Northen Wis. has been getting more moose sightings the last 5 years or so. There are tons of bears and wolves. The deer numbers are most likely down 30 % across the northern range and down 50% in some areas of northern Wis. This has been discussed on Wisconsin threads like Lake-link. We all agrred the only thing that made sense was lack of deer. Less brain worm, and more food for moose. Just a thought. We still have very few moose though. Just a thought, isn't the deer numbers up in northern Minn. over the last 10 or 20 years or so??? I was in Byck Minn. 10 years ago and was impresed with the number of deer I saw over Labor day weekend.

It might be that there are too many wolves and bears eating too many moose calves.

Are you seriously suggesting the go in an wholesale off the wolves and bears just to see what happens?

Miles and Brent, thank you gentlemen. Don't know if I agree with all of it but I do understand better what you are saying and you make lucid arguements.

BCR,

I don't know what to make of all of it either. There are however a number of possibilities and a number of possible questions that need to be explored.

Things like why just Minnesota, or is it really just Minnesota or is Minnesota just the leading edge?

The thing that I find very troublesome to consider is it's coincidence with the Lyme disease epidemic we are going through. The bacteria that cause Lyme disease are known to pass the blood-brain barrier and cause brain injury. Perhaps injury similar to or in the case of moose, producing symptoms similar to the brain fluke.

We are very late to investigating the problem. There are a lot of hypotheses floating around that have merit worth exploring further. The extraordinary results of this study may not be all good. It certainly looks like we can say that the moose decline is due to lack of reproductive success. If we can't grow enough moose to reproductive age to support population expansion that'll do it for sure. The problem is that we are seeing such precipitous decline that exploring the reason for the calf mortality may well become very much more difficult in short order. The reason behind the calf mortality is likely to be more important than the immediate cause. If the example I gave of the brain fluke were true, we could expect to see momma dieing weeks to months after the calves. If a similar disorientation is occurring resultant from borrelia infection, maternal mortality might follow by months to years.

Science is hard and often slow. I hope we have enough time left to do it right.

My guess is that you are not hearing the whole story. Predidation does not stop after 7 weeks.

Local GD traped 60 cow elk and their calves for a study. They collared all the calves. By August everyone of those calves were dead. All cougar kills.

Holy crap, where' the link on the WDFW page I can't find it on that labyrinth.

These Pro-Predator Jokers will tell you that any animal that falls to predation would have died anyway from a worm, lack of food, or because cattle are bad.

Just ask 'em

Some folks hear hoof beats and think unicorns instead of horses

How about we ask you to explain why we didn't have enough moose to hunt until we protected the wolves for a number of years, and how the two coexisted for a good number of years before we began the decline? Maybe why Ontario has a lot of wolves and moose and no precipitous decline.

If you have answers, I can get you a direct line into the people doing the study and I am sure they'd be very happy to have a solution dumped in their ignorant laps.

LOL!

Go polish the bust...

BrentD, sorry to see a wolf ain't ate your ass yet.

So sad to disappoint you. I must not be very tasty to wolves; they have had plenty of chances.

Why are you so opposed to a rational approach to wolves and game management instead of the emotional one that seems to grip you so?

Don't confuse me wanting a wolf to eat your ass with emotion towards wolves.

But you do get so emotional everytime wolves become a topic or I put up a post. Obviously, you have a lot of baggage there.

Has the deer numbers in Minnesota been up the last 10 years? This could be it. There was also a time 40 years ago or so when there were very few moose in Minnesota, then the numbers went way up. Noone seems to know why it happened. Now on the decline again. Is this accurate?

That's sort of a short version of it, and the years might need adjusting, but yeah.

Deer numbers have been up for a while, but the question is are they up in moose country and if so are they infecting moose. If they are infecting moose is that causing the decline, or is the decline being caused by something else.

Miles, I can't comment about NW Ontario's moose population in the present, but I can
as of 4 years ago. South of highway 17 the moose were in tough shape back then. Same reasons given.. Ticks, deer, wolves.
I don't think the wolves impacted the moose to a large degree back then as there seemed to be much less of them, than in my home state of MI. They also can shoot them in NW ON so they stay away from people as a rule giving the game some respite.
Btw our moose population in Upper MI is doing well to the point they might open a season on them in the near future. This would tend to shoot holes in global warming theory as both MI and MN are at around the same latitude.