Impact of Climate Change on Moose Population

Impact of Climate Change on red deer PopulationMoose in the cotton gin?From Montana to Minnesota, Ontario and Wyoming to Hew Hampshire elk numbers game atomic number 18 in steep decline. Could climate change be to blame?These majestic animals, which gage be everyplace 6 feet tall and weigh 700 kg, ar a highlight for wildlife enthusiasts visiting Americas northern states and bring in much take uped tax revenue for local communities. They are also important comp singlents of the boreal wood ecosystem. Unfortunately these well-nighly solitary creatures are becoming increasingly to a greater extent difficult to pick up by hunters and scientists alike.Moose number declinesMontana40% toss off in the number of hunting tags releasedMinnesotaDown 70% since 2006 newborn HampshireDropped from 7000 to 4600Wyoming70% drop since 1998Montana MysteryDwindling populations in Montana gestate left local people worried and scientists cacography their heads as to why. Currently moose numb ers in Montana are not checked regularly, instead they rely on anecdotal evidence from biologists and hunters as to what the situation on the ground is. still many people are worried. Nick DeCesare, the biologist leash the study said Theres fewer moose out there, and hunters are working harder to find them. So worried are they that the Montana Fish, Wildlife Parks (FWP) department have just embarked on a 10 year investigation to dock population changes.By tagging moose with radio collars they can check up on them year after year to measure their remains fat and meditate production line, fecal, hair and teeth samples. They will also check whether they are carrying any diseases or infestations. With this data theyll be able to tell how healthy the moose are individually and as a population and if any tagged moose die they desire to be able to determine the cause. For the time being though, why numbers appear to be dropping so quickly is a mystery. Mike Gurnett, also from the FWP said in approximately parts of Montana, numbers have declined, hunting licenses cut back, and moose counts continue to drop. 50% fewer hunting licenses were issued by the state between 1995 and 2011.Just a Fluke? also in Minnesota, Michelle Carstensen of the states plane section of Natural Resources is also trying to figure out what is happening to their much-loved moose, so popular that they even had an Ice hockey team named after them the Minnesota Moose. Ominously the team was relocated to Winnipeg in 1996.We used to have two significant moose populations in our state one in the northwest, one in the northeast. And the northwest moose population is pretty much gone.Numbers in the northwest population of Minnesota have dropped from 4000 in the 1990s to just 100 in the mid 2000s. This rapid loss drove them to cancel the 2013 moose hunting season altogether in the hope that numbers would rebound. The north-eastern population is also thought process to be declining with few er calves seen over the last 10-15 years than previously. Hunters here too have reported difficulty in finding moose. One of the main causes for this is thought to the liver fluke (Murray et al. 2006), these cause damage to the liver, lungs, and other tissues in the mooses body along with subsidiary infections resulting from the damage. This reduces their overall fitness and Murray thinks that the northwest population will cease to exist in 50 years time.Ticked offIn Ontario, winter ticks are thought to be a major cause of moose deaths. An adult moose can have as many as 30,000 ticks on its body and some have been known be infested with as many as 100,000. All of these blood-sucking ticks can make moose anaemic the lack of healthy red blood cells causes fatigue due to inadequate oxygen supplies. This lethargy makes it more(prenominal) difficult for the moose to get enough food.As you can imagine a lot of ticks can be itchy. Moose dont groom themselves like cervid and so scratch th emselves by rubbing up against trees. This may be congenial in the short term like scratching a mosquito bite but can be detrimental in the long term. Excessive scratching can remove clods of hair meaning the moose are in more danger of dying from exposure in the winter months.In New Hampshire, too, ticks are a big problem for the moose. Youngsters feel the effects more than adults, says wildlife biologist Ted Walski, the 1-year-olds dont have the blood volume or body size (to cope), which makes them more susceptible. In the warm winter of 2011 it is thought that nearly all calves born the previous year died as well as 40% of the adults. In relatively extreme event such as this moose populations can rebound the following year, but if the situation persists for prolonged periods recovery is not possible.UmWhat has this got to do with climate change?The fact that there seem to be a number of different causes for the moose declines in these different areas implies that there may be an underlying cause. Population ecologist Denis Murray suspects that it is climate change.Moose have evolved to live in cold climates. As such they have thick, warm coats and get express if its too hot. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 30 year period from 1983 to 2012 was probably the warmest period of the last 1400 years in the blue Hemisphere (IPCC, 2013). Furthermore, temperatures in this region are predicted to get hold by 1.5 to 2C in spring and summer between 2025 and 2035 with winter temperatures expected to rise by the middle of the century (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2003).Montana, Minnesota, and Ontario all have something in common. Theyre at the southern edge of the mooses range the geographical limit of where they can live comfortably. Moose numbers in southern Sweden, too, have been reported to be dropping.Climate change makes it more difficult for moose to survive in the southern parts of their range. This is thought to be due t o the increased heat stress but also the increased survival ordinate of its pathogens over the winter period.In these southern areas increased temperatures are felt more keenly by the moose. When they get too hot they seek nurse rather than forage for food. This leads to them being weaker but also stops them from building up important fat reserves for the winter. Biologist Mark Lenarz from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resourses prove that increased summer and winter temperatures induced heat stress was one of the main factors leading to an increase in moose deaths (Lenarz 2009).White-tailed deer are the normal hosts for the live fluke. Deer densities are expected to increase in response to milder winters (Murray et al., 2006) exposing a higher number of moose to infection. Murray also found that populations of moose were negatively affected by increases in annual temperatureTicks numbers can also be affected by climate change. To see how we need a bit of info on their lif e cycle Ticks emerge from eggs in the late summer. After a short time they raise on to plants like grasses and trees, here they wait as moose brush up against them they attach themselves. They feed and grow into adults during the winter and then mate in January to February, shorter winters mean more survive until this time. In April they start to detach and fall to the ground to lay their eggs and the cycle continues. However, if temperatures are low there is more snow around. The white background makes the ticks dark bodies stand out and theyre more likely to be eaten by birds(Addison et al. 1989). But if its warmer and there is less snow cover and the ticks are harder to spot on the dark ground more adult ticks survive to lay eggs, leading to increased infection rates later in the year which have a negative impact on moose health. Daniel Bergeron, from the university of New Hampshire, thinks that the widespread die-off of moose in the warm, snowless conditions in the winter of 2 001 -2 extended the period that ticks could be transmitted to moose (Bergeron 2011).http//www.ccwhc.ca/wildlife_health_topics/winter_tick/wintertick.phpcanadaChristy McCain from the University of Colorado Boulder found that larger animals 27 times more likely to react to climate change than smaller animals. This makes them more sensitive to change and so they face the highest extermination risk (McCain and King 2014).The things that are responding most to climate change are the things we tend to like the most, that we go to parks to see to see Big Horn Sheep, Elk, Polar Bears. These are the things that have the highest extinction risk. Much like the dinosaurs that died out after 65 million years ago, it was the small mammals left behind that were able to adapt to their new purlieu more quickly and survive.So Consequences for boreal forest less grazing etcAs well as the threat of climate change there are also threats from logging and especially mining, which currently is not subje ct to environmental assessment.Less browsing by moose loss of natural habitat areas hold by such grazing, fewer wolves as less moose to hunt.ReferencesAddison, E. M., Strickland, R. D. and Fraser, D. J. H. (1989) Grey Jays (Perisoreus canadensis) and common ravens (Corvus corax) as predators of winter ticks, Dermacentor albipictus., The Canadian Field-Naturalist, 103(3), 406-408.Bergeron, D. H. (2011) Assessing relationships of moose populations, winter ticks, and forest regeneration in northern New Hampshire., University of New Hampshire Masters Thesis, online, ready(prenominal) http//search.proquest.com/docview/884096564 accessed 02/03/2014IPCC (2013) Fifth Assessment Report,Climate Change 2013 The Physical Science Basis, online, available http//www.ipcc.ch/ accessed 02/03/2014Lenarz, M. S., Nelson, M. E., Schrage, M. W. and Edwards, A. J. (2009) Temperature Mediated Moose Survival in Northeastern Minnesota, The Journal of Wildlife Management, 73(4), 503-510.McCain, C. M. and King, S. R. B. (2014) Body size and activity times mediate mammalian responses to climate change, Global Change Biology, online, available http//onlinelibrary.wiley.com/inside/10.1111/gcb.12499/abstract accessed 25/02/2014.Murray, D. L., Cox, W. E., Ballard, W. B., Whitlaw, H. A., Lenarz, M. S., Custer, T. W., Barnett, C. and Fuller, T. D. (2006) Pathogens, nutritional deficiency, and climate influences on a declining moose population, Wildlife Monographs, 166, 1-30.Union of Concerned Scientists (2003) Confronting climate change in the great lakes regions impacts on our communities and ecosystems, available http//www.ucsusa.org/greatlakes/glchallengereport.html accessed 27/02/2014.