In Thunder Bay area alone, moose populations have plummeted by some 60 per cent in a decade, provincial wildlife management surveys show.
Moose numbers have also declined precipitously in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and eastern Minnesota, says Dennis Murray, a moose expert at Peterborough’s Trent University.
And while other areas across their vast North American range have seen static or even increased moose populations, there’s a worrisome trend overall, Boan says.
Across Ontario, for example, moose populations have fallen by 20 per cent in the last decade, she says.
The latest provincial estimate pegs the moose population in Ontario at around 92,300 – down from a high of 115,000 early last decade.
In an area of northwestern Minnesota one moose population has likely gone extinct, says Murray. He adds, however, that most experts believe the declines are now a largely localized phenomenon.
“The problem isn’t as severe everywhere,” Boan agrees. “While I don’t think we need to be alarmed necessarily at this point … we need to be very worried and we need to be focusing our energy on it,” she says.
As we ratchet up any focus or energy on the moose, however, untold numbers of the forest giants are suffering horribly as their numbers fall — afflicted by maladies and habitat shifts that are all related to climate.
These include:
Tick infestations that are literally pestering and bleeding the beasts to death.
A neurologically debilitating parasite known as “brainworm” that’s being spread to moose from encroaching white-tailed deer populations.
Warmer weather patters that may be disrupting a metabolism fine-tuned to frigid temperatures.
The opening of new logging roads that allow hunters and wolves better access to the animals, the largest of all deer species.
Boan of Ontario Nature says some of the results can be “hard to watch.”
“It’s horrific, when you see a moose with 80,000 ticks or 60,000 ticks or whatever (and) no hair by the spring,” Boan says.