Hi, I’m Dick Hurren from Bridgerland Audubon Society.
If you’ve spent much time in the forests and wetlands of northern Utah, you may have been lucky enough to see one of North America’s most magnificent animals, the Moose.
The Moose is the largest member of the deer family, and one of the largest mammals to survive the last Ice Age. Utah’s subspecies of Moose is known as the Shiras, or Wyoming Moose. Although the smallest subspecies of Moose in North America, it can grow to be nearly six feet tall and weigh as much as 1,000 pounds. Bull Moose can grow a rack of antlers that reaches four feet across.
One might assume such an ancient and enormous animal has long existed in Utah, but in fact the Moose is one of Utah’s newer immigrants. The first Moose in Utah were seen about 100 years ago, and the total population may have been less than 100 animals as late as the 1950s. Today, there are about 4,500 Moose throughout northern Utah. So how did the Moose become so plentiful in such a short time?
The Moose’s immigration to Utah looks like a case of perfect timing. Many of the Moose’s predators like Grizzly Bears, Wolves and Mountain Lions had been largely exterminated. At the same time, logging was replacing mature forests with new meadows and scrub that Moose prefer. The combination of young growth and wetlands provided the ideal habitat for Moose to thrive.
On top of these favorable conditions, human management has helped the Moose expand. Overwhelming demand for Moose hunting has fostered strategies to encourage population growth. More recently, there have been attempts to speed up the expansion of Moose by transplanting them to new mountain ranges.
Despite success in the last hundred years, Moose face many challenges in the next hundred. Maturing woodlands will be able to support fewer Moose. Old predators are rebounding slightly and will take their toll. But the most difficult challenge the Moose may face is that of climate change. The Moose evolved to survive in extreme cold climates. If temperatures continue to rise, the Moose will retreat higher into the mountains and further north until one day this recent visitor returns to Wyoming or even further north.
The next time you visit the mountains, pay close attention to the streams and lakes particularly those surrounded by willows. And you too may be lucky enough to see the moose.
For Wild About Utah I’m Dick Hurren.
Credits:
Photo: Courtesy and Copyright Jason Pietrzak www.ptrzk.com
Theme: Courtesy & Copyright Don Anderson as performed by Leaping Lulu https://www.leapinglulu.com/
Text: Jason Pietrzak, Bridgerland Audubon Society,
Voice: Dick Hurren, Bridgerland Audubon Society,
For More Information:
Utah’s Unbelievable Ungulates, Nature’s Call, Fall 1997, Utah Project Wild, Utah Division of Natural Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/projectwild/newsletters/97fall-gw.pdf
Where Do They Go When It Snows?!, Nature’s Call, Winter 1993, Utah Project Wild, Utah Division of Natural Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/projectwild/newsletters/93winter-nc.pdf
