The moose researchers I talked to for the moose article published Sunday said they are often asked about the affect of wolves on the moose population. It came up again among the comments attached to the story, and I asked them that about that, too, while I was doing the research. But it'snot the wolves. Below is an excerpt from the research study that was published in 2009 on 116 moose. The lead author is Mark Lenarz, a biologist and moose expert at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. So the facts are that of the 85 that died, hunters killed 15, 2 were poached, 8 died on roads. Wolves killed five. 49 died from unknown causes.
From 2002 to 2005 we captured and radiocollared 116 adult
moose (61 F and 55 M). Sex ratio (M:F) of collared animals
at the beginning of each year (1 Mar) varied from 0.41 to
0.80 (x¯ ¼ 0.65, SE ¼ 0.06, n ¼ 6). We determined ages for
87% of radiocollared moose and median age at capture was
5.7 years (1.7–19.7, n ¼ 55, SE ¼ 0.5) for females and 4.7
years (1.7–14.7, n ¼ 46, SE ¼ 0.4) for males. Of the 116
radiocollared moose, 85 (73%) died by 1 March 2008. In
addition, one moose apparently slipped its collar, one moose
emigrated out of the study area, and we lost contact with
one moose. We designated moose that died within 2 weeks
of capture (5) as capture mortality. Hunters killed 15 moose,
2 were poached, and 8 were killed in collisions with vehicles
(i.e., cars, trucks, or trains). We considered remaining
mortality (55) to be nonanthropogenic and causes included
wolf (Canis lupus) predation (5), bacterial meningitis (1), or
unknown (49) and occurred in all months of the year (Fig.
2).
