Image: Ned Rozell
During the last three decades, Van Ballenberghe and those who have worked with him have cranked out a library of published information about the Denali Park moose, including a nonfiction book, “In the Company of Moose.” Van Ballenberghe and others found that, in some years, eight out of 10 moose calves don’t make it to adulthood, with grizzlies eating half of them and wolves accounting for just 6% of calf loss.
Van Ballenberghe knows that Denali Park cow moose can live to be 20 — “it’s like a 100-year-old person” — and most of its bulls are gone by the age of 13. He once observed a cow that gave birth in almost the exact same spot for 12 consecutive years.
He knows moose prefer diamondleaf willow in summer and the frozen buds of feltleaf willow in winter, and they will gorge on mushrooms when they are available. He’s noticed that moose almost never sleep for more than five minutes at a time. He has seen a fall gathering of 22 cows and 12 bulls, and he knows that those bulls did not eat for more than two weeks until the rut ended in early October.
During the last three decades, Van Ballenberghe and those who have worked with him have cranked out a library of published information about the Denali Park moose, including a nonfiction book, “In the Company of Moose.” Van Ballenberghe and others found that, in some years, eight out of 10 moose calves don’t make it to adulthood, with grizzlies eating half of them and wolves accounting for just 6% of calf loss.
Van Ballenberghe knows that Denali Park cow moose can live to be 20 — “it’s like a 100-year-old person” — and most of its bulls are gone by the age of 13. He once observed a cow that gave birth in almost the exact same spot for 12 consecutive years.
He knows moose prefer diamondleaf willow in summer and the frozen buds of feltleaf willow in winter, and they will gorge on mushrooms when they are available. He’s noticed that moose almost never sleep for more than five minutes at a time. He has seen a fall gathering of 22 cows and 12 bulls, and he knows that those bulls did not eat for more than two weeks until the rut ended in early October.
by Ned Rozell, ADN | Read more:
