August 21, 2015: The gray wolf returns to California

[Griff]

Aren't the moose susceptible to that brain worm the whitetails spread? As long as we are way overpopulated with white tails we won't get many moose. Which brings us back to wolves, bring 'em on.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Griff

Aren't the moose susceptible to that brain worm the whitetails spread? As long as we are way overpopulated with white tails we won't get many moose. Which brings us back to wolves, bring 'em on.

I didn't know so I went looking here. Yes they are.

I also found...

During roughly the past decade, the moose population in northwestern Minnesota has plunged from 4,000 animals to just 100. Moose numbers are declining fast in northeastern Minnesota, too, and as far away as central and southern New Hampshire.

Of course, parasites and wolves have always been around. So “something must have changed in the last decade and a half that makes the moose more susceptible,” Carstensen says. Climate change is a prime suspect, since Minnesota has experienced a series of warmer winters—but many scientists don’t think temperatures have warmed fast enough to cause such a steep decline. Adding to the perplexity is the fact that moose are doing just fine in Quebec, Ontario, Alaska and Maine. The thriving population in Maine is especially important, because the state is home to an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 moose, more than the other lower 48 states combined. “It’s a really mixed bag across Canada and the U.S.,” says Lee Kantar, the moose biologist for Maine. “You can’t have Quebec right next to us with increasing moose populations and have this talk about doom and gloom.”

Part of the brain worms life cycle is being carried on slugs/snails then accidently ingested. In the New Hampshire mountains the moose take the high ground and the deer take the low. In the areas they do mix acid, rain has decimated the snails/slugs.

The leading threat in New Hampshire, where the moose population has declined as much as 40 percent in some areas during the past three years, seems to be the winter tick. Warmer winters and less snow cover mean that more ticks survive to lay eggs when they finish feeding on a moose and drop to the ground. As a result, tick numbers are up. “The ticks are literally carpeting these animals’ bodies like shingles on a roof,” Rines says. “It’s enough to make you run screaming through the woods.”

Rines, Pekins and others have counted more than 100,000 ticks on a single moose.

Oh. My. God. The Moose decline is probably from suicide.