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MOOSE MOVEMENT
D0982 is doing fine
and still has her twins. She has been located from the air 7 times, and all
three of them (mother and kids) were actually seen 6 of those times. With snow
on the ground now, moose are easier to see. Once D0982 and her calves
were seen close to a bull that was standing between them and another cow and
calf pair. This was B8131 and her remaining calf (she had twins, but
lately has only been seen with one calf).
In October, when D0982 was located twice, she was observed in or very near black spruce and tamarack trees (look at your map). In fact, she seems to have spent most of her time in this area of lowland conifers from April on through October. But, notice that by November she and her calves have moved further west into a large open area of willow brush bog. All the locations for them in November and December are in this open brushy area.
This will be an interesting pattern to watch. Does she have a different summer home and winter home? Is there food that she eats in the summer time under the spruce and tamarack trees that is different from the winter food she and her calves are getting in the more open willow bog areas? We'll have to wait for future locations and updates this winter to see if the moose stay in this area.
Three more radio-collared cows have died in the last three months, one in each of the three study areas. The first one died in the forest in early October. Its body quickly decomposed and was scavenged before the researchers got to it, so we will never know why that cow died. The moose that died in the agricultural area by the town of Viking was found in early November. She had lots of body fat but had a bad heart and lungs. The cow at Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge died near the end of November, likely from a parasitic infection. She didn't have any body fat and was full of liver flukes - even on her lungs!
Two of the research volunteers discovered a bear den in Agassiz while they were searching for a moose. They found a big hole in the snow and thought they saw something looking out at them from the darkness. They soon found out what it was when a full grown bear charged out of the hole and ran away from them - it was hard to tell who was more surprised, the volunteers or the bear!
Out of the three sets of twins born to research cows last spring, there's only one set left - and that's to D0982. The other two cows each just have a single calf with them now.
We are still seeing some moose migrations occurring.
One moose for example was captured at Agassiz, had her calf in the agricultural
area near Viking, came back to Agassiz in early fall, and in November moved
just out of Agassiz to the east. Stay tuned for the future wanderings of
this one . . .
Agassiz's Annual Moose Survey
The annual aerial winter moose survey was flown over Agassiz National Wildlife
Refuge on November 26. This survey has been done every year since 1970.
This year it flown on the same date as last year, but it was 55 degrees
warmer this year with only 3" of snow compared to over one foot in
`96!
This chart shows how the count turned out this year
compared to years past. The numbers of moose at Agassiz are pretty much the
same as last year - just up one to a total estimated moose population of 72.
These numbers are still considerably less than the 267 moose counted at Agassiz
as recently as 1992.
The annual aerial surveys for the Red Lake WMA and agricultural areas around
Agassiz will be flown some time in late January.
Bogs are Wetlands
Of all our radio-collared moose in northwestern Minnesota, seven of them
live in the bogs of the Red Lake Wildlife Management Area. Bogs look, from
the distance, like a big, flat, wet meadow and they feel, if you were to
jump on one, like one of those giant inflatable pillow/bubbles you play
on at the fair. But they are really very complicated communities of plants
that are constantly soaked with water. Mosses (better known as peat in some
places) make up the basic fabric of a bog - just as trees do in a forest.
But, just as in a forest, many other plants live there,
too: Exotic plants such as the carnivorous pitcher plants and sundew, which
catch and eat insects. Beautiful orchids grow there, along with many kinds
of sedges, and shrubs like the bog cranberry, bog birch, and bog laurel.
Plants with odd names grow in bogs: liverworts, hornworts, and beak-rushes.
Rare plants such as yellow-eyed grass and bog rush can be found if you are
willing to look hard and put up with LOTS of mosquitoes.
Bogs Provide Habitat
Did someone say something about mosquitoes?
Bogs are full of them in early summer. Woe to the poor moose volunteer who
has to venture out in one to retrieve a dead moose! Bogs provide great habitat
for mosquitoes - and everything that eats them . . . other insects, plants
(remember the bug-eating pitcher plants?), birds, bats, frogs, and reptiles.
The bog is an example of nature's food chain - eat and be eaten!
Bogs
provide homes from the smallest spider right on up to the moose we are following
on our research project. Many of the critters in a bog are rare, living nowhere
else and a few are common to other habitat areas too. Rare animals include the
great gray owl (pictured), Connecticut warbler (a great mosquito eater!), three-toed
woodpeckers, sharp-tailed grouse, bog lemmings, arctic shrews, lynx, and caribou.
Moose, wolves, snowshoe hares, spruce grouse, and savannah sparrows are a bit
more common and can be found in other areas, too.
People and Bogs
People don't live in bogs, but they tried to. Back at the beginning of this
century, the early pioneers dug ditches through many of the big bogs, trying
to drain them. The hope was that after the ditches drained all the water
out, the land would be good for farming.
But have you ever tried to drain a sponge by cutting it in half? It doesn't work. A sponge (and a bog) holds on to the water within it because it is so absorbent. Bogs hold on to water above the waterline level, which means you can't drain them easily by just digging a deep trench. Because of ditching, plant life was changed.
Look at this picture. Can you see how the ditches have changed where there is open bog compared to spruce trees? The ditches dry out some areas while making other areas more wet. Bogs provide people with many valuable things. They are beautiful places to explore and look for rare plants and animals. The thick bog plants help filter and clean the water that goes through them. Bogs help prevent flooding since they are so good at holding on to any water that runs into them or falls on them in the form of rain. Skiers and snowmobilers sometimes follow the ditch pathways in the winter to escape from areas with lots of other people. Sometimes great blueberry crops are discovered in bogs. The trees--tamarack, cedar, and black spruce, are occasionally harvested. And some bogs are actually mined for their peat which is used by gardeners or burned as fuel.
Moose densities in Canada's Northwest Territories
are a little higher than at the Red Lake Wildlife Management Area. There
are about 8 to 17 moose for every 100 square kilometers in far northern
Canada and about 6 to 10 moose for every 100 square kilometers here.
Moose have 32 teeth: 12 in the upper jaw and 20 in the lower. Like deer
and cows, they don't have any front teeth on the top of their mouth.
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
URL: http://midwest.fws.gov/agassiz/moose.html
Last updated on: January 19, 2000
Minnesota Moose Mystery
managers:
Margaret Anderson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Moose
B8164
Gretchen Mehmel, Minnesota
DNR - Wildlife - Moose D0982
Questions and comments on this web site: Mike
Caucutt
