Imagine a cool fall morning, dew and fog cover the ground. You sit in a white pine stand, the forest floor covered in needles from years past. The canopy of the trees is over one hundred feet tall yet no sun reaches the ground. Goosebumps ripple across your arm, there is a small patch of sun just ahead a chance to warm up. Bright beams stretch across your face and chest as you approach, there is a gradient headed into a shaded wetland. That is when you see him, walking straight toward you.
A giant in any era of Aki’s history, he stands near six feet tall at the shoulder, his antlers seemingly stretch beyond reason past his silhouette. For many thousands of years, these larger than life relatives have called the continent home. From the time there was glaciers or when the land was covered in tall pines. Much has changed and yet the moose remain.
Here in the western Upper Peninsula widespread logging and destruction of habitat led to a significant decline in population. The ecological response to logging brought the introduction of new diseases from species moving to occupy the changed landscape, most notably brain worm from white-tailed deer. By the 1900s only a handful of individuals remained scattered across the landscape.
Several attempts to reintroduce moose have been made, some more successful than others. Significant resources have been dedicated to understanding the species at Isle Royale, and decades of research and monitoring has continued. For many years all signs pointed to a carry capacity of nearly 1000 animals. Recent trends shown a stagnation in the moose population. These data trends were compiled through a series of collaborative projects, most recently the moose capture project.
-Moose calf leaving the capture site.
Northern Michigan University, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community have come together to deploy a number of monitoring tools in the ‘core area.’ “Our goal is to better understand why the moose population has remained stagnant. We’re collecting data related to movement, mortality or survival, habitat use, and other factors influencing population growth,” Blake Chosa, Wildlife Biologist for the KBIC.
The project is as much a spectacle as the subject themselves, low-flying spotter planes reporting to helicopter and snowmobile teams, darting moose, deploying equipment, and collecting samples. Exactly what you always imagined a biologist doing, rather than the reality of stuck in the office. Only the birds and a few sniffles, calm and calculated, this is the teams second year and it shows. “We were smooth, more prepared, and effective. We doubled our effort from the previous year,” Kyle Seppanen, Wildlife Coordinator for the KBIC.
This project represents who we are, one of the last frontiers. The moose is a symbol of the U.P. a sign that we are still wild, untamed. Perhaps you see this story as a success, of what we can do to correct the wrongs of the past. After all the U.P. belongs to them as much as it belongs to us.
-Kyle Seppanen,
KBIC Wildlife Coordinator, works up a moose with staff from MDNR
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