Bad news delayed doesn't make it better, and in this case it just means more dead moose.
Last winter I saw an interesting report on the web pages of the Minnesota Division of Natural Resources (DNR). What made the report interesting was that they showed in a pie chart, what my "back of the envelope" tally of data from an ongoing study was also showing. The precipitous and supposedly mysterious decline in Minnesota moose was being caused by wolves. Over half of adult mortality and two thirds of calves. Below the graph for a discussion of the data.
I read a great article on
The Natural Resources Defense Council's On Earth Blog. before I even saw the graphs, and even though the headlines of the blog post might perpetuate the mystery, a careful read of the words of the scientist, and if you added up the dead moose by source of mortality, the results were unambiguous. The Phd specialized in doing necropsies on wildlife, he could differentiate between a moose killed because it was weakened by parasites and one that simply had parasites and was preyed on by a wolf pack. Most adult mammals carry parasites.
In the graph wolves blue, wolf caused secondary infection red, ticks green, unknown purple, brainworm orange.
You can imagine what I thought when the report and the pie chart were pulled from the DNR web site. So I sent an email. It and the reply over the fold.
Email and a different kind of mystery.
to info.dnr
Hi,
Back in November of last year I was reading a report on moose mortality in Minnesota and found these charts. Now when I follow the link back to the report http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/... I can't seem to find them. Am I looking in the wrong place? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I figured to get some kind of stock reply from some intern or IT type person, telling me some kind of whatever. Instead I got nothing for a couple weeks, then one day an email from the Phd running the animal diseases department, the person who was giving all the interviews to visiting journos from every major paper and TV station in the US. Not only a reply from a big cheese but it was carbon copied to every research scientist involved. People with a lifetime of research on large wild mammals throughout the US.
The response email was a predictable brush off as I'd expected, but it explained too much. Said they'd taken it down for a non reason and it would be back up in a couple weeks, (it still isn't as far as I can tell), and that the total mortality is the same, (whatever), and therefore it makes no difference, (it does). It all seemed a convoluted reply to a simple info request and too many people copied. Something stunk like a three week old moose carcass with a ruptured gut sack.
I already knew they had as good a person as possible running the necopracies and they had the best study ever coordinated to get as good a data as has ever been collected. Yet they'd decided to sit on the first year's data. One year of data is only preliminary I know, but why suppress it? Why not even mention to visiting journos that your very preliminary first year of data shows unsustainable predation by wolves.
So I made a google thing to tell me when there was a Minnesota Moose story, and the stories started building on themselves. Journos love a story, and they might well have been told one. They even flew the NYT guys in a helicopter and let them watch a moose get shot in the snow. Talk about a dog and pony show!
The story was always the same. Big mystery, maybe space aliens, or,,,, da ta da! climate change. Wolves hardly got a mention, usually "predators" mentioned as an afterthought. Or, "as with all science things move slowly and more information is needed, we only have one year", blah blah blah. Google moose and climate change and Minnesota. Everyone did an article. Al Jazeera, Salon, Mother Jones, regular scientific detectives at work they were. Sometimes I think Journos brains are made entirely of moose turds. Careful reading revealed carefully chosen words on the part of the DNR spokesperson. No one can say they mislead the journos, except that's what I'm saying.
A scientist looks into it.
You can imagine I was more than a little amused when rumors of a study by the International Wolf Center began to reach me. They just happen to be situated in Minnesota, and happen to have been doing a study at around the same place the DNR was supposed to have noticed huge declines in moose despite steady wolf populations. Turns out the wolves had multiplied quickly, almost doubled, as they are wont to do, and the wolf increases matched the moose decreases. The International Wolf Center is one of the few or maybe only, wolf research NGO that advocates for wolves without resorting to falsehood, hyperbole, wishful thinking, etc. I've never heard of anyone disputing the results of one of their studies, and this case is the same, it has been out since July.
The following is from an interview with one of the authors of the study, David Mech, the world's pre eminent wolf researcher.
Qestion Describe findings of the study you and professor Fieberg published recently in the Journal of Wildlife Management.
Answer Two major findings. The first is that studies by the Minnesota DNR in 2009-2010 suggesting that the decline of northeast Minnesota moose was related to some kind of climate change minimized indications that wolves were involved......
Our data indicate that the wolf population in and near the moose study area had grown significantly. I also suspected that statistics from the DNR study were flawed, regarding the effect of climate change on wolves..... There’s simply no evidence that climate change has contributed to the moose decline in the northeast. Instead, wolves likely were involved in some way.
This exchange about possible consequences was particularly chilling, if you like moose in Minnesota that is.
......Deer in parts of the BWCA provide an example. In our study area in the late ’60s, there were deer all over those lakes in winter. Then we had a series of severe winters, and now, due to the combination of those winters and wolves in the area, you just don’t find any deer. They’re gone.
Q Could a similar situation occur across a broader area of northern Minnesota?
A It could.
Emphasis mine. In a nutshell he is saying the conclusions from the DNR were demonstrably wrong and there is a chance that all the Moose could be gone just like what happened to the deer in the BWCA. (boundary waters canoe area?) Mech later goes on to give his best guess that moose will persist in vastly reduced numbers.
My thoughts.
Minnesota had two moose populations, eastern and western. The western one is pretty much gone, they claim that one had nothing to do with wolves, there's no way to double check the data now. The eastern population is what's being discussed.
For whatever reason the Minnesota DNR seems to have been sitting on the fact that they are losing all their moose to wolves. I really didn't care, and probably it doesn't much affect people in Minnesota. No Minnesotans depend on a moose every year to fill the freezer. It was a once in a lifetime hunt, not the meat for a year. When you have a human population that regularly depends on a species for food, that's when you have very strong advocates.
Before many wolves starve they'll have cleaned out every moose and deer they can find. Populations of anything edible will be low. I'd think deer hunters will feel the pinch, but then a deer only yields a month or maybe two of meat. More of a treat than a daily staple food.
The interesting bit is how Minnesota decides to tell it's population what caused the moose decline and if they decide to do anything about it. Journalists tend to report things people already know, and this story is just beginning to pop up in local papers. Minnesotans are proud of their moose, all kinds of sports teams and geographic names everywhere. They had school kids collecting money to save the moose by contributing to research. Special license plates.
This year the DNR announced with triumph that populations were steady. Both wolf and moose population surveys are near impossible to estimate with any kind of accuracy. It's all a guess. Wildlife doesn't stand still to be counted. Good luck looking under evergreen trees etc. Our wildlife agencies with fifty times the budget, all the incentives in the world, thirty years experience, and a much more open canopy have a hard time counting elk, deer, and mountain lion. Moose we only make guesses at, they are solitary throughout the year.
Moose have lots of things looking to do them harm. Everything from brain worms to wolves to cars, but the most deadly might well turn out to be something called the Division of Natural Resources.
Update: I'm fairly amused at the comments linking and using discredited news accounts and quotes from the obfuscating DNR. (or even the exact same article I linked) That's the thing with emperors and no clothes and stuff. People realize they've been looking at the hairy butt of some old guy all this time and calling it a silk garment. Fortunately the data is there for all to see. 2/3 of calves, over half the adults, total mortality in the 20%+ range.