The Moose with the Most

My hometown in northern Michigan is one of the jumping-off points to Isle Royale National Park, the state's only national park. Isle Royale is a fascinating natural laboratory where scientists have for decades been studying the interaction between a large pack of about forty wolves (who arrived in the 1940s by walking over the ice from Canada or Minnesota) and a few thousand moose (who arrived by swimming from Canada in the 1920s). The wolves are winning right now, partly because the moose are hideously infected with ticks:

"Last summer, the average moose had lost over 70 percent of its body hair due to ticks," said Research Assistant Professor John Vucetich (SFRES), who has been involved in the Isle Royale study for about 10 years. "This is about twice the hair loss of just a few years ago. A moose with 70 percent hair loss could have been carrying in excess of 70,000 ticks during the winter and early spring." A single moose can host several ticks per square inch, and each tick can suck up about a cubic centimeter of blood. Rather than feed, the moose scratch themselves against trees or bite their hair out trying to remove the parasites. Weight and blood loss may prove such a handicap that the moose don't survive the winter. (This particular species of tick doesn't pester humans; only moose at Isle Royale suffer their effects.) The weakened moose are made doubly vulnerable in extra-snowy winters such as the last two, since they become mired in the deep snow and are easy prey for wolves.

I dunno about you, but this makes me glad for an office job.