Tiny herd of Oregon moose thrives

Published 11:03 pm Monday, February 18, 2008

ENTERPRISE, Ore. — Deep snow and temperatures dipping below zero are just the thing, biologists say, for Oregon’s tiny herd of moose.

Oregon’s moose population is estimated at 38 in number, and they appear to be thriving in northeast Oregon this winter.

“In the winter when it gets above 23 degrees, they start looking to cool themselves down,” said state wildlife biologist Pat Matthews of Enterprise. “In the summer, anything above 60 degrees is too warm for them.”

Those looking for moose this spring and summer could float the Grande Ronde River between Minam and Troy or drive the now snow-covered U.S. Forest Service roads north of Elgin in Union and Wallowa counties.

“They are very secretive and solitary animals, and they show up when they show up,” Matthews said. “It took us a long time before we started seeing them.”

He and other biologists have counted 14 cows, six calves and six bulls. They estimate that the population numbers 38, but it could include up to 60 animals. They say it might grow someday to as many as 700.

Last month, biologists used a helicopter to capture four adult cows living in chest-deep snow and dining on willows near Troy. The biologists placed global positioning system collars on the cows. Next month they hope to capture and collar a bull.

The cows have remained east of the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness in snow that is more than 4 feet deep.

The first recorded sighting of a moose in Oregon is believed to have occurred in 1960 along the Imnaha River of northeastern Oregon. An attempted transplant of five moose from Alaska to western Oregon in 1922 ended in failure, Matthews said. Three moose calves are known to have been born in northeastern Oregon in 2005, with nine born the following year and at least six born in 2007.

Oregon’s moose migrated several years ago from the Spokane-Pullman region into Oregon’s Blue Mountains, where they like the abundance of forage and the dark, cool and deep forests.

Matthews expects them to continue migrating south into the Eagle Cap Wilderness and the Imnaha River drainages.

The moose are Shira’s moose, the smallest subspecies in North America. Most are dark brown or black, sometimes with grayish-white hair on the undersides of the back legs. Males can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds, compared with the larger, 1,500-pound Alaska-Yukon moose, the largest North American subspecies. A Shira’s female moose can tip the scales at 700 to 800 pounds.

Matthews said the Department of Fish and Wildlife has no plans to permit hunting the moose anytime soon.