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Thread: Moose mortality stats

  1. #21
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
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    Victoia BC when not at work, otherwise up North
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    1,605

    Re: Moose mortality stats

    The biggest problem I can see is convincing Weaver (Claiming to be a Scientist) the leader of the Greens, that Science based management is the best way to conduct Wildlife Management. Wildlife Management as preached by the Green-Church (best example the cancelation of the Grizzly hunt) is nothing but pandering to the Ignorant.


    Cheers

    * When the People fear the Government there is Tyranny, when the Government fears the people there is liberty.
    * Studies have shown, Vegetarians are poor providers !
    * We are told this is the Information age. Seems to me more like the missinfomation age !
    * Most always the soft spoken ones are the most deceiving and Dangerous !
    * The Law is no substitute for Morality !

    Be safe and happy Trails !

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
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    Re: Moose mortality stats

    Quote Originally Posted by bearvalley View Post
    With greater than 85% cow survival the dead cows aren’t what’s bringing on the decline....even if the picture of the cow moose head with the nose removed leads some to point fingers that unlicensed hunters and wolves are the declining factors.

    Some points from the study;
    -an abnormally high percentage of the cows are old
    -The bull/cow ratio must be OK because the numbers of bred cows at the time of collaring was fine.
    -over half the cows were malnourished when observed after death
    -the number of 8 month old calves collared is much lower than the pregnant cow rate

    So, in my opinion either one of two things is going on;
    -the cow moose are in to poor of condition to birth and raise a viable calf or bears are having a feast
    how do you come to the conclusion its bears having a feast? coming in with the least amount of collared moose kills, cow and calf? Your opinion reads like someone wishing to solve the declining moose population by selling grizzly bear and black bear hunts, while continuing to sell big bull moose hunts. Are you a guide outfitter by any chance?
    (there were a handful of areas studied with bulls coming in well under the target bull/cow ratio too)

    So far the study on calves shows by far the biggest mortality in calves was, again caused by wolves. Like cows, double, and triple, quadruple and ten fold the rates of any other cause of mortality and other predators.
    I'm sure being chased around by multiple packs of wolves all winter long will add to the malnutrition as well.

    During this study wolves killed collared cow moose

    2.6x more than "unlicensed hunting"
    7x more than bears
    10x more than cougars
    4.7x more than starvation

    Also 2 of the "health related" collared cow moose deaths were actually from failed predation, you could probably can add those 2 under wolves kills too if you are a betting man.

    Of the 21 collared calf mortalities, wolves were responsible for:

    9x more than bear
    9x more than cougar
    2.3x more than starvation

    Keep doing these studies, and they will, they are.... and they will again come out with the same conclusions, wolves killing the most moose and likely chasing them around in circles all year off the prime feeding sites.

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
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    Re: Moose mortality stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Sirloin View Post
    how do you come to the conclusion its bears having a feast? coming in with the least amount of collared moose kills, cow and calf? Your opinion reads like someone wishing to solve the declining moose population by selling grizzly bear and black bear hunts, while continuing to sell big bull moose hunts. Are you a guide outfitter by any chance?
    (there were a handful of areas studied with bulls coming in well under the target bull/cow ratio too)

    So far the study on calves shows by far the biggest mortality in calves was, again caused by wolves. Like cows, double, and triple, quadruple and ten fold the rates of any other cause of mortality and other predators.
    I'm sure being chased around by multiple packs of wolves all winter long will add to the malnutrition as well.

    During this study wolves killed collared cow moose

    2.6x more than "unlicensed hunting"
    7x more than bears
    10x more than cougars
    4.7x more than starvation

    Also 2 of the "health related" collared cow moose deaths were actually from failed predation, you could probably can add those 2 under wolves kills too if you are a betting man.

    Of the 21 collared calf mortalities, wolves were responsible for:

    9x more than bear
    9x more than cougar
    2.3x more than starvation

    Keep doing these studies, and they will, they are.... and they will again come out with the same conclusions, wolves killing the most moose and likely chasing them around in circles all year off the prime feeding sites.
    Sirloin, for a starter....wolves kill moose......bulls, cows and calves.
    Heres a quote from the study, “Our results from monitoring the survival rates of 400 cow Moose over the course of five years are sufficient to evaluate this hypothesis. Cow survival rates were greater than 85%, which is within the range reported from stable Moose populations, ie>85% (Bangs eTowards al. 1989; Ballard et al. 1991; Bertram and Vivion 2002).
    These rates were higher than survival rates estimated for cow Moose from the Northwest Territories (85%, Stenhouse et al. 1995) and northern Alberta (75-77%, Hauge and Keith 1981). The Bonaparte, Big Creek and John Prince study areas had cow survival above 85% in all years whereas Entiako was below 85% in three of five years, and Prince George South was below 85% in two of five years (Figure 15).
    Therefor survival rates over these five years were not indicative of Moose population declines and were inconsistent with the cow survival rate component of the landscape change hypothesis”.

    The study goes on to say, “Nearly half(n=29) of all cow Moose that died and had samples suitable for analysis were in a state of poor condition or malnutrition, and these mortalities mainly occurred between April and June”.

    So this is where it needs questioned are the surviving cow Moose in good enough body condition to support a viable calf.
    To me it looks like the cow Moose population is top heavy to old cows, that means either not enough calves are making it fro birth until 8 months of age when the calves were collared or these 8 month old calves are not reaching reproductive maturity.
    I’ve always believed that wolves are a major contributor to ungulate declines but bears are a huge factor in stopping an ungulate increase.
    Bears don’t wait for a calf to be 8 months old, as the age of the studied calves was...bears eat calves at birth and shortly after.
    A recent Alaska study documented bears that killed on the average in excess of 34 moose or caribou calves each.

    And if it matters...yeah I’m a guide outfitter.
    Who and what are you?

  4. #24
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    8,515

    Re: Moose mortality stats

    Okay, before the arrows start flying back and forth etc.
    I can see what bearvalley is saying from a brief glance of the study (pages 20-21).
    They are talking about survival rates of calves "after 8 months old".

    So, that leaves the question "how many calves dropped in the spring"?
    (which is different from cow to calf ratios when they actually doing fly over counting thru winter time normally)

    Would also have to see if they make any mention of "pregnancy %/rate" of cows?

    But yes, if they are only starting the study of calves at 8 months old, a lot of them could have been lost to bear predation in the spring, thus not accounted for in that "pie chart".

  5. #25
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    Mar 2004
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    Re: Moose mortality stats

    Quote Originally Posted by ElectricDyck View Post
    I didn't read the report just looked at the pie chart and I see 97 out of 400 dieing, thats a 75% survival rate? What did I miss?
    Thats the trouble with a snap shot pic showing dead-side data only.
    3 out of 4 survived? that sounds like a good story, not likely to stir a storm
    Never say whoa in the middle of a mud hole

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    3,424

    Re: Moose mortality stats

    There has been poor recruitment for years so of course the cows are old..bulls too. Predation always focuses on the young. You end up with a top heavy aged population that become less and less productive over time..and then collapse.
    It is well to try and journey ones road and to fight with the air.Man must die! At worst he can die a little sooner." (H Ryder Haggard)

  7. #27
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    Dec 2016
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    1,125

    Re: Moose mortality stats

    Quote Originally Posted by bearvalley View Post
    Sirloin, for a starter....wolves kill moose......bulls, cows and calves.
    Heres a quote from the study, “Our results from monitoring the survival rates of 400 cow Moose over the course of five years are sufficient to evaluate this hypothesis. Cow survival rates were greater than 85%, which is within the range reported from stable Moose populations, ie>85% (Bangs eTowards al. 1989; Ballard et al. 1991; Bertram and Vivion 2002).
    These rates were higher than survival rates estimated for cow Moose from the Northwest Territories (85%, Stenhouse et al. 1995) and northern Alberta (75-77%, Hauge and Keith 1981). The Bonaparte, Big Creek and John Prince study areas had cow survival above 85% in all years whereas Entiako was below 85% in three of five years, and Prince George South was below 85% in two of five years (Figure 15).
    Therefor survival rates over these five years were not indicative of Moose population declines and were inconsistent with the cow survival rate component of the landscape change hypothesis”.

    The study goes on to say, “Nearly half(n=29) of all cow Moose that died and had samples suitable for analysis were in a state of poor condition or malnutrition, and these mortalities mainly occurred between April and June”.

    So this is where it needs questioned are the surviving cow Moose in good enough body condition to support a viable calf.
    To me it looks like the cow Moose population is top heavy to old cows, that means either not enough calves are making it fro birth until 8 months of age when the calves were collared or these 8 month old calves are not reaching reproductive maturity.
    I’ve always believed that wolves are a major contributor to ungulate declines but bears are a huge factor in stopping an ungulate increase.
    Bears don’t wait for a calf to be 8 months old, as the age of the studied calves was...bears eat calves at birth and shortly after.
    A recent Alaska study documented bears that killed on the average in excess of 34 moose or caribou calves each.

    And if it matters...yeah I’m a guide outfitter.
    Who and what are you?

    I see what you mean now. All points make a lot of sense. I glazed over the calves were only collared after 8 months.

    I'm not saying bears aren't killing younger calves at higher rates, but a very relevant piece of info from that Yukon study.
    "Wolves preyed on moose calves more often than on otherage-classes."
    "Wolves inour study killed proportionally more calf, yearling, and oldmoose and fewer prime-age animals. This age pattern wassimilar to other Alaska and Yukon studies"
    "We found a strong negative relation between annualwolf density and thepercentage of moose calves alive in March. We found a similar relation for cariboucalves"





    If they prefer to prey on calves, and we know how many adult and 8+ month old calves they are killing, how effective do you think they are on the calves at birth and shortly after as well?

    We didn't quite have the same level of bear population explosion like the one we have been seeing in wolves throughout this province. That and their ability to cover A LOT of ground fast and efficient working in packs on logging roads and transmission lines they must be cleaning up the moose calves.

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    VANCOUVER
    Posts
    6,861

    Re: Moose mortality stats

    [QUOTE=bearvalley;2094474]With greater than 85% cow survival the dead cows aren’t what’s bringing on the decline....even if the picture of the cow moose head with the nose removed leads some to point fingers that unlicensed hunters and wolves are the declining factors.

    Some points from the study;
    -an abnormally high percentage of the cows are old
    -The bull/cow ratio must be OK because the numbers of bred cows at the time of collaring was fine.
    -over half the cows were malnourished when observed after death
    -the number of 8 month old calves collared is much lower than the pregnant cow rate

    So, in my opinion either one of two things is going on;
    -the cow moose are in to poor of condition to birth and raise a viable calf or bears are having a feast[/QUOTE]

    Probably the way it is!
    Here's one of the many studies on bear predation when the calves are most vulnerable-birth to 2 months. Let's not forget the bear's sense of smell is 2100x better than ours & the dog's sense is 100x.
    So the bear's sense of smell is 20x + better than a wolf.

    Posted this before!
    Overall, the bears killed an average of 34.4 moose and caribou calves over 45 days.
    One killed 44 calves(moose) in 25 days.

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...ootage-reveals
    “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” -Otto von Bismarck
    Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.-Albert Einstein


  9. #29
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    2,469

    Re: Moose mortality stats

    [QUOTE=mpotzold;2094520]
    Quote Originally Posted by bearvalley View Post
    With greater than 85% cow survival the dead cows aren’t what’s bringing on the decline....even if the picture of the cow moose head with the nose removed leads some to point fingers that unlicensed hunters and wolves are the declining factors.

    Some points from the study;
    -an abnormally high percentage of the cows are old
    -The bull/cow ratio must be OK because the numbers of bred cows at the time of collaring was fine.
    -over half the cows were malnourished when observed after death
    -the number of 8 month old calves collared is much lower than the pregnant cow rate

    So, in my opinion either one of two things is going on;
    -the cow moose are in to poor of condition to birth and raise a viable calf or bears are having a feast[/QUOTE]

    Probably the way it is!
    Here's one of the many studies on bear predation when the calves are most vulnerable-birth to 2 months. Let's not forget the bear's sense of smell is 2100x better than ours & the dog's sense is 100x.
    So the bear's sense of smell is 20x + better than a wolf.

    Posted this before!
    Overall, the bears killed an average of 34.4 moose and caribou calves over 45 days.
    One killed 44 calves(moose) in 25 days.

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...ootage-reveals
    mpotzold, you don’t have to convince me....I have seen what’s happening to our ungulates.

  10. #30
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    Nov 2008
    Location
    Kamloops
    Posts
    4,309

    Re: Moose mortality stats

    Quote Originally Posted by HarryToolips View Post
    Well at least the study has proved what we already know: wolves and First Nation harvest are the primary causes of our moose declines..solutions: convince the government that we need to cull wolves in BC, and we need to educate First Nations that they are supposed to be stewards of the land (I know the majority of them are good)...thanks for posting Sirloin..
    Not moose declines, cow moose declines, and unlicensed could also be poachers. 15% unlicensed isn't a number that I would really be concerned about IF the wolf take wasn't so high...I think the big thing we have to look at here is the wolf kills, and not get distracted by what in essence could be a sustainable harvest in all other facets
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