It was with sadness, and a sense of tragic intervention, that I read the single line in Brian Larsen’s Oct. 5 article on higher-than-expected mortality in moose calves: “Early in the project, 11 calf deaths could be attributed to the trauma of being collared.”
Many paragraphs followed that single sentence. I am left questioning how can a mortality rate of 22 percent, caused by the human intervention of collaring, receive only a single sentence?
How can we not have better science to study these magnificent creatures without forcing the abandonment of nearly a quarter of the studied calves, by the mothers, due to our collaring methods? I fully respect the desire and need to understand the waning numbers of moose in northeastern Minnesota. Our methods must be better or our studying actually causes what we are trying to understand and avoid: Why are the moose dying?
I hope to again see the day when I can watch, early on a glorious summer morning, one of these gangly yearlings clopping down the Clearwater Road or the East Bearskin Road. Truly a site to behold.
Let’s find a better way, Science.
Marjean Leary
Saint Paul, Minnesota
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