Moose Study Area

	Viking Agricultural Area is located in the western portion of the study area. This area is intensively farmed with grain fields, alfalfa, sunflowers, and pasture lands interspersed with pockets of aspen woodlands and scrub-shrub wetlands. Moose numbers have remained stable in this area until 1996.

Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding State Wildlife Management Areas make up 83,200 acres containing a large marsh complex, scrub-shrub wetlands, and aspen woodlands with a mixture of grasslands and black tamarack/black spruce bog. Moose numbers fluctuated between 200 and 400 + for years until 1993 when a dramatic decline began. Now the population sits at about 70 animals.

Beltrami Island State Forest Area is in the eastern portion of the study area. The 669,000 acres include large areas of coniferous forests, aspen woodlands, scrub-shrub wetlands and tamarack-black spruce bogs. The Red Lake Wildlife Management Area is located within the forest. During the last 30 years moose numbers have declined. Today, moose numbers are estimated to be less than one quarter the number found during the early 1940's.

Moose Home Page    Moose History      Study Area Map   Study Area    Research Design    Research Summary    Adopt-A-Moose Program   Research Cooperators  Sponsors    Media Index    U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service URL: http://midwest.fws.gov/agassiz/moose.html Last updated on: January 4, 1999 Minnesota Moose Mystery managers: Margaret Anderson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Gretchen Mehmel, Minnesota DNR - Wildlife Questions and comments on this web site: Mike Caucutt