The Cellar - August 21, 2015: The gray wolf returns to California

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- - August 21, 2015: The gray wolf returns to California (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=31187)

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV (Post 937044)

I have to give her credit for delivering her lines flawlessly. She sounded exactly like someone who believed that the DOT controls the migration patterns of the deer population.

:facepalm:

I'm putting up a "Hot Chick Crossing" sign in front of my house today. Let's see if that's where they start crossing.

:lol2:

No. Hot chicks are, on average, not as smart as deer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gravdigr (Post 937054)

Man, that's a lot. I mean, I knew PA had a pretty bad problem with it, but, I guess, I just never thought it out in terms of numbers. Dayum. It's still hard to get my head around those numbers.

PA has just under 2000 miles of interstates, but deer kills are even happening in the cities. That's Whitetails, not to mention Mule deer, and Elk. Thank heavens the Meeses haven't got here yet. At least a dozen deer die every year within a mile of my place, on two lane suburban roads less than ten miles from Philly.
Wolves? Shit, motor vehicles are THE apex predator. :haha:

Rumor has it that in the West, rabbits used to run towards headlights,
but cars were so efficient in killing them that the only survivors were
those that ran away from the lights.

PA is just experiencing a step up/down/around the White Tail's evolutionary tree.

.

Wait. In fact, stop the fucking car.

Pennsylvania has mule deer?

I couldn't find any info on the interweb about a Pennsylvania mule deer population.

I'm just learning all kinds of shit today...

They're a minority, so we try to get them on welfare, and keep them out of sight, so they don't get uppity. :yesnod:

Pennsylvania has mule deer, then.

How? I mean, I assume re-introduction?

I swear to God, the longer this day gets the more confused I become. I'm about to quit.

I always keep a couple in the fridge. They were transplanted like the Elk, very small number.

So...

The state that runs over 115,000 deer/year, in it's infinite wisdom, sat down, had a meeting, and said "We don't have enough deer. Let's bring some more in from out of state. Yep, more deer, that'll do it.". Not only more, but, bigger, deer, on top of that.

:headshake

I would assume they had a reason, probably dietary or disease resistance, like they did for Elk. Deer are browsers and Elk are grazers, so if you want to knock down grass, and let seedling trees survive, Elk is more gooder. Not much has come of it but they do succumd to our apex preditor now and then.

Thanks for the info, btw, Bruce.

The car insurance companies will shit when the Meeses arrive, they've made their way into southern Connecticut already.. :unsure:

Aren't the moose susceptible to that brain worm the whitetails spread? As long as we are way overpopulated with white tails we won't get many moose. Which brings us back to wolves, bring 'em on.

Do not fuck with moose.

When I had regular business dealings with my friends in Alaska, it was common for a moose/vehicle collision to leave the vehicle in worse condition than the moose. Hell, I've heard more than one story where a moose totaled an F-150. That is a *lot* of mass on each side of the collision. Moose dies, truck's a wreck and the driver is lucky if he doesn't go to the hospital.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griff (Post 937120)

Aren't the moose susceptible to that brain worm the whitetails spread? As long as we are way overpopulated with white tails we won't get many moose. Which brings us back to wolves, bring 'em on.

I didn't know so I went looking here. Yes they are.

I also found...

Quote:

During roughly the past decade, the moose population in northwestern Minnesota has plunged from 4,000 animals to just 100. Moose numbers are declining fast in northeastern Minnesota, too, and as far away as central and southern New Hampshire.

Of course, parasites and wolves have always been around. So “something must have changed in the last decade and a half that makes the moose more susceptible,” Carstensen says. Climate change is a prime suspect, since Minnesota has experienced a series of warmer winters—but many scientists don’t think temperatures have warmed fast enough to cause such a steep decline. Adding to the perplexity is the fact that moose are doing just fine in Quebec, Ontario, Alaska and Maine. The thriving population in Maine is especially important, because the state is home to an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 moose, more than the other lower 48 states combined. “It’s a really mixed bag across Canada and the U.S.,” says Lee Kantar, the moose biologist for Maine. “You can’t have Quebec right next to us with increasing moose populations and have this talk about doom and gloom.”

Part of the brain worms life cycle is being carried on slugs/snails then accidently ingested. In the New Hampshire mountains the moose take the high ground and the deer take the low. In the areas they do mix acid, rain has decimated the snails/slugs.

Quote:

The leading threat in New Hampshire, where the moose population has declined as much as 40 percent in some areas during the past three years, seems to be the winter tick. Warmer winters and less snow cover mean that more ticks survive to lay eggs when they finish feeding on a moose and drop to the ground. As a result, tick numbers are up. “The ticks are literally carpeting these animals’ bodies like shingles on a roof,” Rines says. “It’s enough to make you run screaming through the woods.”

Rines, Pekins and others have counted more than 100,000 ticks on a single moose.

Oh. My. God. The Moose decline is probably from suicide. :vomit: