Y2Kyoto: I'll Miss The Moose The Most

if moose are declining, then why are they moving to Regina. Immigration occurs in part from over population cvauing a shortage of resources to go around

moose here in Saskatchewan have been expanding their range for the last 10 years. Only the severe winters the last two winters have slowed this expansion down.

The greatest threat to the moose population is people trying to save the moose!?!?!?

No surprise to me. There's the recent case of the frog fungus spread by frog researchers trying to track the development of the killer fungus.

Being in the mining industry, I'm accustomed to ecological rules that make no sense. Having the leading cause of fish mortality in creeks adjacent to the waste spoils being government biologists over-sampling to "prove" how dangerous the water run-off is for the fish. How streams with naturally generated acid (that is how the mining deposit was found) that were toxic to fish become prime habitat when the mining freshwater diversion systems are placed, and have to be managed as though they always contained fish. Outcome based rules are never acceptable, there has to be micro-management and micro-control. As with the moose, the systems and interactions don't make sense on the micro-scale, and efforts to determine what the micro-state is can break that portion of the system.

Tell us the result you want, then get out of the way and let us produce it, for crying out loud!

So I read all that, and the links from N.H. fish and game.
I think you'll get a kick out of this older scientific perspective on moose population.

http://www.wolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/111relationshipofdeer.pdf

(Better download this one as it supplies inconvenient truth.)

It's definitely a local issue, local humans are killing moose with their idiotic "climate change" research, not global humans warming the earth. The gravy train is over for these idiots, though they'll likely con some more money - perhaps a carbon tax to offset "lower" gas prices. Watch for that one, as Rex Murphy opined today.

The government funded (CAGW) hysteria industry is becoming a very poor example of scientific pretense. Luckily for the rent seekers, the general public is illiterate or ambivalent in such maters.

I think you missed the punchline. the $750K grant was awarded AFTER this screw-up!

"Oddly given those results, biologist received a new $750,000 grant to study the effects of “global warming” on declining moose."

I hunt moose in NW Ontario. There has been a decline in moose population there as well. I don't know if its the same cause in Minnesota, but the consensus opinion is that the decline in NW Ontario is over hunting by a certain group who have unlimited hunting rights because they are at one with nature and stewards of the earth. They then go into the woods with reefer trucks, and jack lights to kill every moose they can find for commercial sale. The MNR are powerless and/or unwilling to do anything about it, and if it doesn't improve they could completely wipe out the moose in that part of the country.

Before I get too excited about moose populations I would need to study their population cycle.

I've been following this story for a few years now. The moose 'problem' has now moved north of the border to NW Ontario. Wildlife managers there have now severely limited moose hunting activity in zones that previously supported liberal harvest.

Wildlife biology is infiltrated by hubris. You get that undergrad and look out, your ready to micromanage wildlife populations - quite often with very limited knowledge about what is actually going on, what caused it, and what to do about it. Very often it's best to let the problem sort itself out rather than interfere and make it worse.

I guess what I'm saying is that wildlife biology is often not very exacting. If you throw money at a researcher conclusions will be drawn.

But 2014 was "officially" (aka bogus land and ocean surface temperature "estimated" and "adjusted" or just missing/disregarded) the "warmest year on record" (aka since 1880).

Just as predicted earlier!! Talk about precision, man. Now we know for sure!! Eeeeeeek!!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/16/2014-hottest-year-on-record-scientists-noaa-nasa

No, it makes sense when you disregard satellite measurements. Pray for global warming, pray.

All I had to do this whole time was put secret tracking collar on moose! Now how do I get rid of squirrel? Frostbite Falls will be mine!

I'm confused. Why is sea ice close to the record in area when the temperature is highest ever? The Atlantic shows record high temperature but there hasn't been a Class 3 hurricane in over 9 years. I thought heat caused hurricanes.

The 1990s were warm as were the 1910s and 1930s but it's been quite chilly recently. Is somebody fibbing to us to keep the grant money flowing?

All your moose must be coming to Newfoundland. There is no shortage of the bistards here.

Polar Bears are not cooperating, so these alarmists are frantically running around looking for a replacement. Curiously, Moose populations in Northern Ontario took a decline, after Ontario banned the Spring Bear Hunt. Moose calves born in the spring are vulnerable to Black Bears up to 6 weeks after birth, and more Black Bears means less Moose.

Watched a neat little nature film it showed a cuddley polar bear eating the goslings of Barnicle geese some skuas abd arctid terns attack the cuddly polarbear and drive it away SCREW YOU GREENPEACE

Wolves were taken off the endangered species list and we were allowed to hunt them the past 2 years in MN. The people in the big cities and East coast types who love their poster of the wolf looking out from behind the snowy tree went absolutely nuts. The MN DNR did not relent to the hunting protests. They relent to everything, but not this. Wolves are showing up on trail cams just outside of the Twin Cities and there are far more than they tell you. Wolves are no good and there is a reason there was a bounty on them until the 1930's.
Moose populations are going down because of wolves. You don't need a Gov. grant to figure this out.
Now, about a month ago, some judge put them back on the endangered list. Idiot. People who live with them will continue to shoot shovel and shut up. They will put nails in meat and let the wolves eat them and die from internal bleeding. By the way, this really sucks when your dog eats one. I don't blame them though. They are not left with much choice, are they?

When the moose population is up ticks become a problem. They scrape all the hair off their sides and starve themselves to death. Before Whitey showed up in Alberta there was almost no game and almost no wolves and almost no people in the woodlands. That natural equilibrium that the greenies keep wishing for involves population levels approaching zero.

Back in the day when I thought I wanted to be a fish cop, I took 3 semesters of wildlife management, that and 38 years as a large game hunter and conservation activist, I feel somewhat qualified to comment on the "science" used these days in managing wildlife populations.

First off, our profs were all hands on wildlife biologists who did field work for years and lived where they worked - they gained a lot of practical knowledge not disseminated in "wildlife science" texts and courses in university. One of the first object lessons they taught was that wildlife management was a regional issue due to local ecological systems and specialized species were the most vulnerable to ecological change. Predation, parasites, age and food are the big winter survival factors in boreal ungulate (deer-moose) numbers.

In moose it is primarily infant mortality due to predation or winter tick infestation. The latter leaves a corpse many will mistaken for starvation. Ticks kill many individual animals but when the weather conditions are right and there is a large tick infestation it can appear like a population is being stressed by other factors. If you operate under the narrow scientific template which bio science students from U of T do, you start with a premise that AGW/climate change directly impacts moose survival rather than look at how it impacts their predators, diseases and parasites - you put on your safari shorts and birkenstocks and take a quick summer vacation/trip to Algonquin region , find a few poorly preserved moose carcasses, far from prime study condition and figure this is an adequate sample size to use lab pathology to prove climate theories.

Any long haul trucker has seen more dead moose than a University bio undergrad. The facts as I learned them in MNR college, from hands on profs, was that the Moose-winter tick relation heavily determines local moose numbers - and the tick infestation will peak or decline regionally depending on the amount of rain in April/May. Now that is a weather-dependant survival rate for a moose parasite - however if you are chasing carbon dioxide molecules around the atmosphere instead of endemic moose pathogens to prove damage to every local eco system, well, your mind is already made up on the matter before the study is conducted isn't it?

I've hunted moose in the Porcupine Forest zones (NE Sask) every year since the late 80's. My observations:

Initially, very plentiful numbers.
Mid nineties, tick infestation severely decimated moose populations.

After several years, the numbers rebounded. This brought about unchecked native hunting pressure- night hunting, actively hunting with loaded firearms from the back of 1/2 tons (witnessed), unrestricted vehicle access to forestry operation roads, no seasonal shutdown, etc. (numerous kill sites detected throughout the winter while snowmobiling forest trails). Naturally, not good for our mooses!

Once again the numbers rebounded, and hunting was good. The last couple of years, a noticeable decline in numbers, and for the first time, wolf presence was very evident, as was reports of this from the locals.

At the same time, here in the more southerly grainbelt, moose numbers have sky-rocketed in the last 20 years, to the point of being a real vehicle hazard, be it from being pushed out of their forest enviro by the above factors, or simply because a more enticing habitat is now available.

Whatever the reason, the farcical global warming bullshit is just that! We`ve hunted in October and November, variably in shirtsleeves or skidoo-suits. These fraudsters need more backlash.

We should put collars on global warming alarmists, maybe that would help reduce their population...

A pair of knownothings a married couple named Frank and Debra Popper come up with this stupid thing they called THE BUUFALO COMMONS they wants to move everybody off the great plaisn rea so the buffalo and roam free and unmolested and frankly their nuts to come up with this idiotic idea. and remember face north while attacking a south bound moose or is it the other way around in reverse?

A wee bit of logic for the global warming moose researchers:

If a warmer climate kills off moose populations, why do they exist at all in the warmer southern regions?

SCREW THE POLARBEARS SAVE THE SKUAS

I have hunted moose for over 50 years. I was a wildlife biologist for 30. There are many reasons why moose numbers go up and down. Check out my blog, as I've posted and discussed a number of reasons behind moose decline, many of which have been brought up by the people who have posted here. Things not mentioned that affect moose at the landscape scale are landscape level events like wildfires (e.g., a 200,000 ac fire becomes a moose factory for about 20 years, but then the factory goes bankrupt). Also, in the east, there is a parasite in white-tailed deer that can be transmitted to moose and devastate moose populations. It's called meningeal worm, and it's a huge problem when deep populations surge. The parasite is absent in the prairies and west, as the prairies are too dry for the intermediate snail hosts to survive. FYI, moose hunting is worth many 10's of millions of dollars annually to Ontario, and obviously a lot more when looking at all of Canada (every province and territory except PEI has moose and moose hunting).

Liberal do gooders cuase more harm to wildlife then tose anything else

OH GIVE ME A HOME,WHERE ALL SEAL ROAM,AND THE SKUAS AND PENGUINS ALL PLAY,WHERE NEVR IS HEARD THE GLOBAL WARMING WORD,AND THE AIR IS FREEZING ALL DAY