Tracking Moose

Hi Everyone

It's been a hectic week up here at the pens. Our sunny weather has ended for the time being, and we've had a considerable amount of rain. I have been out for the usual four 6 hour observation sessions. The moose have had a few distractions, as we had a hydroaxe out here last week. We've cleared the brush around the perimeter fences, which is now of great interest to some of the moose!! They've exploited the freshly cut browse, and have been able to get at leaves that would normally be inaccessible by height.

The three photo's are all pretty interesting. On Monday, I was out with Diana, I followed her to the feeder, and she proceeded to use the salt lick for over 15 minutes!! She also was seen bark stripping on these young Aspen trees. This is unusual, as moose tend not to strip bark as much during the summer. The final photo is of a wild moose in pen 3!!! I was observing Willow on Tuesday, and this wild moose showed up!! It was quite tame, although it was jumpy as you can see. One of the other biologists told me that this moose got over the fence when the snow was built up against it last winter.

I also got two days of observation on Willow, and managed to observe another yearling called Izabella last night. She is quite a nervous young moose (2 years old), but she got used to me after about 1 hour. By the end of the trial, she allowed me to monitor her food intake, which was very rewarding.

It's been a busy week, so I'll close... hope you like the photo's and enjoy the information.

All the best, til next Friday.... LIAM.

We often see wild moose when we make the bumpy drive into town.

I look forward to sending you a copy of my manuscript when I finish data collection and analysis. At the moment, we are keeping the collar on Willow, and so we have not downloaded the datasets from the movement sensor.

This week has been interesting, as the weather has cooled down a lot, and we've finally had some precipitation after about two weeks of hot sun. The moose seem to have responded with increased daytime activity, both in terms of intensity of foraging bouts, and apparent quantity of food consumed per bout. I followed Willow for 12 hours (2 x 6 hour sessions) during the daytime on Tuesday and Wednesday. Interestingly, there was a heavy rain shower on Tuesday, which occurred whilst Willow was bedded in a birch stand. Willow proceeded to get up, and forage on fireweed in an open area. Take from this what you will, but she may have done this to exploit the cool rain or even to gain extra water from her food (whilst it was still wet). On Wednesday, Willow displayed a fascination for a fresh game trail. She "sniffed" the brush around the trail for about 15mins, walking slowly along the trail. I am unsure what animal made the trail, although it did not look like a moose trail, as much of the vegetation was flattened (not characteristic of moose).

Yesterday I spent 6 hours with a different moose, called Olivia (see photo's). She is another two year old moose that came in with Diana and a few other moose calves. This was my first time with her, and she seems to be a very lazy moose!! The weather was cool and cloudy, and she foraged hard with 3 other moose for a couple of hours between 09:30 and 11:30. She then traveled to a low bog, and bedded down (as moose normally do after a foraging bout). 4 hours later, as I left her, she was still bedded down!! This was despite the fact that her fellow moose had long returned to foraging up over the hill!!!

That's about all for this week. I have two more weeks of data collection to gather, then I will begin the downloads.

All the best, until next week.... LIAM.

July 16 2004

This week has been highly productive for us out here. I observed the moose for 24 hours in total, split between 4 sessions. After discussing the fact that our moose have been foraging for only a short time during the day, we decided to observe willow during the early hours of Tuesday morning. We spent 6 hours with her, starting at 4:30am, and running until 10:30am. We found that she was far more relaxed, and that she foraged more intensively, and for longer during the cool pre-sunrise period. The first two photo's were taken on that morning, and those white eyes in the first photo are from two of our young moose coming to investigate!! As you can see in the second photo, as the sun began to rise, Willow tucked into plenty of fireweed!

I went out with Diana on Tuesday evening, observing here from 4pm until 10pm. She was in the company of one of our other young females called Martha. They fed heavily between 9pm and 10pm on willow, birch and dwarf birch.

I was out with Diana during the day yesterday, she was spending time with a group of young females. They escaped from the heat in a mud bath as you can see!! Diana was also feeding on some Alder, which was interesting (see the photo).

Well, thats this weeks installment. Hope you had a good week. Have a great weekend all..

LIAM.

July 12 2004

It's been another hot week up here in the Kenai Peninsula. Monday was a Holiday, so on Tuesday I got out with a 2 year old moose called Diana - she’s the one in the first photo. She is a fistulated moose that was hand raised here at the pens. She is very mellow, and readily approaches the feeders by the cabins. I followed her for 6 hours in the heat, and found that she utilised a "mud pool" to cool off. I observed her bedding in the mud for over 2 hours in the middle of the day. This tactic seems to keep her cool and helps keep the bugs off.

I followed Willow on Wednesday and Thursday for 6 hours each day. On Wednesday I sat with her in a shady mature Spruce stand for over 4 hours!! She was probably trying to maintain a low metabolic rate so that she didn't overheat. After finally getting up, she walked straight to the lake to cool down!!! As you can see in the photo the loon was interested in her swimming activities!! On Thursday, she ate a large number of mushrooms, as you can see in the close up.

Hope you are well, and that this information continues to be useful. All the best to you and all at the Moose Foundation.

This week I have been following a moose called Willow. She is a 7 year old moose that was born on July the 21st in Portage Valley. This is the latest birth of a wild moose that we have come accross here at the Moose Research Centre. She was bottle fed from 5 days old out here at the centre, and has been with us ever since. She is now living in pen 3, which is a 1 mile squared enclosure of mixed forest including mature and crushed stands. I have attached two photo's of her, and my findings are listed below...

1) She spends approximately 2 hours browsing primarily on a mixture of fireweed, willow, aspen and birch. She then beds down to ruminate for approximately 1 hour after a foraging session. This is repeated throughout the day, with slight variations in the length of foraging and ruminating bouts.

4) She has a tendency to select certain areas of the pen, and will forage extesively in these areas.

5) She avoids more mature stands for foraging, as this offers her very little in the way of nutrient benefits. However, she will travel through these areas to reach corridors of low shrub and bog habitats.

6) I have yet to see her consume any water plants, which is unusual, as this forms an important portion of summer diet. I have noticed that she gets mobbed by mosquitoes in the very wet areas, so maybe she prefers to stay in semi-wet areas, where there are less mosquitoes, but where primary browse species are abundant.

7) She has a tendency to bed down on elevated areas, which is likely to help her in sensing potential predators or other moose.

I hope to gain more knowledge on willow's behaviour, and will likely be studying her next week as well. Expect to hear more, and see more of these cute photographs soon. I will also be studying another adult cow in pen 2 called Mattie, so look forward to more findings from my time with her.

Liam

I have been doing lots of fieldwork this week, and we have all been busy fitting a new GPS collar on Willow. This will now allow us to see exactly where she is in the pen 24 hours a day. We have initiated the collar, and have spent two days tracking her and analyzing some of her activities during this hot spell of weather. The collar also has a trip switch movement sensor, which will eventually give us an idea of what she is doing whilst we're gone.

I've attached photographs of her with her new collar, and also swimming in the lake. The weather has been in the 80's, and the mosquitoes and horseflies are really hitting the moose hard at the moment. As you can see, she loves to get away from the bugs!!