Moose coming through
They are multiplying and moving closer to people in Colorado, causing problems that are more than just the occasional animal sighting.
The proliferation of moose in Colorado after state-run reintroductions to boost hunting and tourism is leading to more conflicts with people, dramatizing the challenges of coexistence with wildlife when there’s a significant size gap.
Broomfield police grappled with this Monday when residents dialed 911 to report a moose browsing near the Boulder Turnpike and at the FlatIron Crossing mall.
Police surrounded the moose at sunrise as it lay in grass and nibbled on trees near the Men’s Wearhouse store. That moose had been caught before — on Father’s Day in Arvada — and was relocated to Larimer County.
It soon felt, once again, the sting of a tranquilizer dart in its rear.
When the moose collapsed, Colorado wildlife managers loaded it onto a trailer and hauled it away, this time to South Park.
Colorado Department of Transportation officials report an increase in vehicle collisions with moose along Interstate 70 east of the Continental Divide. Moose in Colorado weigh up to 1,200 pounds. Because moose are big and have long legs, vehicle collisions often prove fatal for the driver and the animal.
“How far east is too far east for moose? How dense of human development is too dense?” said Liza Hunh olz,Co lorado Parks and Wildlife manager for the Denver area. “You can make a moose go wherever it wants to go. They’re not afraid of humans. There’s a public-safety concern.
“Moose move down creeks and do fine. But then they get up against a substantial barrier, like eight lanes of I-25, and cannot keep moving, it puts us in a bind. They end up just staying,” she said. “We do everything we can to push them back to the west.”
Colorado’s multiplying moose stand out at a time when the species is dwindling elsewhere. In Minnesota, the moose population has decreased by 55 percent since 2006, a decline a state panel blamed on stress from rising temperatures. Ticks, poor habitat and disease from a brain worm also are thought to be factors.
Two hundred years ago, moose probably wandered all across Colorado. But they appeared scarce in the 1970s.
Starting in 1978, Colorado wildlife managers imported moose from Wyoming and Utah, reintroducing up to 90 animals at a time to spots west of the Continental Di-
vide: on Grand Mesa, near Meeker, east of Walden and above Creede.
The reintroduction, which continued for 32 years, was intended to create a new big game hunting opportunity and to promote wildlife viewing by tourists. CPW is a selffunded state agency, depending on revenues from hunting to operate. In 2015, 22,070 hunters competed for 315 licenses to kill moose. In 2016, 23,712 hunters applied for 343 licenses.
Hunters kill about 260 moose a year. Yet the population is growing, currently at the rate of 18 percent a year. Colorado’s moose population numbered about 3,015 in 2016, up from 2,550 in 2015 and from 1,270 in 2007, CPW data show.
Moose now appear as far south as Silverton and Telluride in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. In increasingly populated metro Denver cities, CPW crews have had to relocate at least nine moose in three years. Successful?
“It certainly was,” Joe Lewandowski, CPW spokesman in the southwest region, said of the reintro- duction. “They’re doing really well here because of the cold weather and all the meadows and high valleys.”
As they multiply, moose have been spreading mostly east across the Continental Divide. Young males pushed by older bulls wander down foothills into Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Boulder and Broomfield to find new habitat.
Retired psychiatrist David Gershon, 70, spotted the moose moving from FlatIron Crossing toward U.S. 36 at about 1 a.m. Monday. Gershon was the first of at least three people who reported the animal with a 911 call to Broomfield police.
“I thought: This is really dangerous. It is a big animal,” Gershon said. The moose wandered back from the highway to mall shops, left when a police officer drove by, then came back again and lay still as three police cruisers surrounded him around sunrise.
“It was like he knew what was going on,” Gershon said. “The police stayed for another two hours.”
Moose eat twigs, such as those found on willow branches and oaks. They typically forage alone, devouring up to 70 pounds a day. Wolves and grizzlies are their natural predators. There aren’t any in Colorado.
“Predation? Coyote is about it. Maybe mountain lions,” Lewandowski said.
The result is that moose can browse statewide largely unchecked, except when people and pets intrude. People get hurt in vehicle collisions and in encounters involving pet dogs. Moose see dogs as wolves, their natural predators. If threatened, they pull back their ears, lick their snouts, roll their eyes and charge, often following dogs to their owners and stomping.
Colorado Department of Transportation officials couldn’t say whether the increased moose collisions on I-70 included fatalities. “We’ve seen an increase in moose collisions on I-70 below the Eisenhower Tunnel — more hits than usual in the last five years,” CDOT spokeswoman Tamara Rollison said.
In Jamestown, a moose attacked two women in early June. And a moose recently was spotted in central Boulder.
CPW officials consider conflicts when setting hunting license numbers. They use hunting as the primary tool for managing wildlife.
“Our No. 1 priority — above hunting and watchable wildlife opportunities — is public safety,” Hunholz said. “We don’t want anybody hitting a moose on an interstate if we can prevent that.”