Photo courtesy of Katie Mumm
For the first time since the annual moose count took place in 1960, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) won’t be conducting an aerial winter survey of moose in northeastern Minnesota.
Concerns about COVID-19 led to the decision to cancel the count this year. The DNR works together with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and 1854 Treaty Authority, who also contribute funding and provided personnel for the annual moose survey. The survey is used to estimate how many moose live in the region, and it details the percent of calves, and calf/ cow and bull/cow ratio.
Covering almost four million acres, the DNR researchers sample 52 out of the 436 survey plots that cover the full range of the moose in northeastern Minnesota. The plots are 13 square miles. In 2020, a spotter in a helicopter counted 308 moose on 39 (75 percent) of the 52 plots surveyed. Breaking down the data, 131 were bulls, 138 cows, and 37 were calves, with two that couldn’t be classified.
During the winter 2019 survey, 429 moose were observed on 52 plots.
In 2006 there was an estimated 8,840 moose in northeastern Minnesota, but Alces alces number have fallen 60 percent since then, although the population has been leveling off since 2012.
What caused the precipitous die off? Researchers couldn’t point to one thing, instead citing a host of suspects. They included predation by bears and wolves; brain worm, a parasite carried by deer that can kill moose; a warming climate that hurt the large animals who need cold temps to stop from overheating; and winter ticks that cause moose to loose weight and get weak, which makes them susceptible to predators and diseases. Throw those reasons in with a loss of habitat, and moose numbers dropped rapidly for a half dozen years.
Are the largest animals in the northland making any kind of comeback? Or are their numbers trending downward again? We will have to wait until next winter. You can count on that.
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