Moosewatch 2021 Part 3

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile journeys exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

You don't have to hike far on Isle Royale before you come upon balsam fir trees that look like the photos below:

This tree is the primary food source for moose in the winter. As you can imagine, as the moose population expands, the competition for balsam branches increases.

A prolonged winter can also decrease the chances of a moose making it to spring.

On this year's Moosewatch, my team recovered bones from 8 moose, a few of which were showing signs of starvation.

Scientists have been studying the interaction of moose and wolves on Isle Royale for 63 years now. The most recent annual report can be found here.

And here's a sunset from Isle Royale.

 

The Importance of Balsam Fir (4th in a series about Isle Royale)

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile adventures exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

It's difficult to imagine how Isle Royale would look if the 2,000 moose weren't there, each munching 40 pounds of vegetation every single day. And in the winter, they primarily munch the soft needles of the balsam fir trees on the island.

There is a place where you can get a glimpse of how moose impact these trees: the exclosure at Windigo. Here, the NPS set up a fenced area to keep moose out.

Inside the exclosure, balsam fir tower above. They can reach heights of 70 feet tall if unmolested by moose.

Balsam fir tower overhead inside the exclosure

Large trunk of balsam fir in exclosure

These trees are all over the island, but most look like the ones in the photos below due to winter browsing by moose. Most of these trees are browsed off at a height of a couple of feet. 

Munched by moose

This balsam fir is denuded of needles as far up as moose can reach (walking stick is about 5-feet tall)

Balsam Fir Trees

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and Great Lakes speaker. She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile adventures exploring the Great Lakes and has written three books about the Great Lakes [A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach *a Heartland Indie Bestseller*, A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Walk *winner of the Great Lakes Great Reads Award*, and A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Island Adventure]. To learn more about her work, or to book her as a speaker, go to http://LakeTrek.com

This year I hiked my third Moosewatch Expedition on Isle Royale. 

In addition to gathering moose bones, teams also gathered data from shed antlers, and tallied  sightings of gray jays and snowshoe hares.

Gray jay

Snowshoe hare

Another important assessment in the field was the availability of winter browse for moose.

In the winter, moose eat primarily balsam fir trees.

Tiny, munchable balsam firs populate the island

As the moose population grows on Isle Royale (with only 2 wolves left on the island, there is no predator pressure to stabilize the moose population), there are more moose mouths to feed during the long winters. 

Moose will repeatedly munch these trees. Some tiny trees are actually decades old!

This poor tree has had its top munched off multiple times leading to this crazy growth pattern.

It's rare to see tall balsam fir here, but my team found some trees that had evaded browsing long enough for them to reach over two meters tall! They were luckier than the trees in these photos.