Category: Vertebrates

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Winter Encounters With Moose

Winter Encounters With Moose
Moose in Parking Log
Photo Courtesy US FWS
Ronald Laubenstein, Photographer

Winter Encounters With MooseCow Moose and Calf
Photo Courtesy US FWS
Tim Bowman, Photographer

Winter Encounters With MooseBull Moose
Courtesy & © 2007 Jason Pietrzak

Hi, I’m Ru Mahoney with Stokes Nature Center.

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to visit Stokes Nature Center in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, you know that we’re located about a third of a mile up a narrow trail cut out of a steep slope of the Bear River Mountains on one side and dropping down into the rocky waters of the Logan River on the other. Which is why it’s always a particularly sobering experience, when making a winter morning trek up the aptly named River Trail to the nature center to find my way blocked by 1200 pounds of antlered bullish brown bulk, standing 6 feet at the shoulder. In case you’ve never happened upon a moose yourself, they are what happens when Mother Nature decides that the bulk of an NFL player and the legs of a supermodel should get together in one massively large and absurdly leggy Deer-zilla. And while I’ve never met a moose who’s bored browsing and indifferent glance didn’t make it pointedly, and yes, a little painfully obvious that I was far more impressed with them than they’ve ever been with me, they can pose a threat to the incautious admirer. While I don’t encounter moose every month of the winter, I do hear well-intentioned nature center visitors talk frequently about their own encounters, which too often include accounts of trying to get closer to snap a great picture.

Moose are the largest member of the deer family in North America, and are found in the north and northeastern forests of Utah. Despite their size and top heavy appearance, they thrive in watery environments. An adult moose doesn’t hesitate to wade into deep water to browse on aquatic vegetation and can often be spotted swimming effortlessly across lakes and marshes to get to prime grazing or escape a perceived threat. Their hollow hair makes them incredibly buoyant swimmers and keeps them well insulated against the cold both in and out of the water. In winter months they may leave frozen high alpine lakes and seek out forage on evergreens and bark, making encounters on lower elevation hiking trails more likely.

Male moose rut in the fall, tirelessly seeking out willing females. Easily distinguished by their large antlers, which can spread to more than 4 feet across, a bull moose in rut can become unexpectedly aggressive. Signs of aggression include laying back their ears, raised hair along their neck and licking their snout. Female moose don’t have the impressive antlers of their male counterparts, but don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re docile. A mother moose with her spring calf is quite possibly the most dangerous moose, and will use her powerful legs and sharp hooves to trample anything she thinks might be a threat to her babe. This includes the unlucky hiker or – more often – an unleashed dog.

Wild Aware Utah, a nonprofit offering education on how to reduce conflict with wildlife, recommends responding calmly to encounters with moose, talking loudly to let them know you’re there and leashing pets. Often the moose will move along on its own, uninterested in conflict. But if you find yourself in the bullseye of a moose’s ire, the best course of action is to back away slowly. And if you’re unlucky enough to be charged, get behind a tree or solid obstacle. Moose can run up to 35 miles an hour, which means you’re unlikely to outrun one, no matter how much adrenaline is fueling your flight.

To learn more about moose and how to prevent conflict with other Utah wildlife, visit WildAwareUtah.org.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Ru Mahoney.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy US FWS,
              Courtesy and Copyright 2007 Jason Pietrzak
Text:     Ru Mahoney, Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon.


Additional Reading:

Wild Aware Utah, (Hogle Zoo, Utah DNR, Utah State University Cooperative Extension,) https://www.wildawareutah.org/

Hardware Ranch Wildlife Management Area Management Plan, Prepared by The Hardware Ranch Stewardship Team
and Logan Simpson Design, Inc., Utah Division of Wildlife Management, Mar 20, 2012, https://wildlife.utah.gov/hardwareranch/comment/HRWMA_management_plan.pdf

Utah Moose Statewide Management Plan, Utah Division of Wildlife Management, Utah Department of Natural Resources, Nov 30, 2017, https://wildlife.utah.gov/hunting/biggame/pdf/moose_plan.pdf

Hersey, Kent R., Utah Division of Wildlife Resources statewide management plan for moose (2000), Utah. Division of Wildlife Resources, https://digitallibrary.utah.gov/awweb/guest.jsp?smd=1&cl=all_lib&lb_document_id=10838

Wolfe, Michael L, Hersey, Kent R., Stoner, David C., A History of Moose Management in Utah, Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322-5230; 2Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Salt Lake City, Utah, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257449101_A_HISTORY_OF_MOOSE_MANAGEMENT_IN_UTAH

Prettyman, Brett, What’s making Utah’s moose numbers rise and fall?
Study will track populations of animals with radio collars in Uintas and Wasatch Front, Dec 17, 2012, https://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55461427-78/aoude-decline-moose-north.html.csp

Pietrzak, Jason, Moose in Utah, Wild About Utah, Sep 30, 2008, https://wildaboututah.org/moose-in-utah/

Wildlife in Utah, Utah.com, https://www.utah.com/wildlife/northern.htm

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Ruffed Grouse and the Christmas Bird Count

Ruffed Grouse and the Christmas Bird Count
Ruffed Grouse
Bonasa umbellus
Courtesy Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

I set out this week to investigate why so many gifts in ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ are birds. You know the song: there are swans a swimming, geese a laying, calling birds, French hens, turtle doves, and that partridge in the pear tree. Well, I never did find the answer. But what I did find was some interesting information about a native bird often incorrectly referred to as a partridge –a bird that is supremely well adapted to life in winter.

Ruffed grouse resemble partridges in that they are ground-dwelling game birds of similar size and stature. Their name comes from a collar of long feathers surrounding the necks of males who fluff them out when seeking mates in spring. The birds come in two color phases, differentiated mainly by their tail feathers, which can be either gray or chestnut brown. While not well understood, a grouse’s color phase seems to be linked to climate. Grouse with gray tails are more prevalent in areas defined by cold winters, while brown grouse are more common in warmer climates.

Now that snow is blanketing the landscape across much of their territory, the ruffed grouse is in its element. Harsh winters that adversely affect populations of other ground-dwelling game birds such as quail, pheasant, and turkeys, don’t seem to faze ruffed grouse. Their ability to survive is dictated by a number of special adaptations. The first is on their feet, where each winter nubby feathers called pectinations grow on the sides of the birds’ toes. Looking like strange combs, the bristles act as snowshoes, allowing the grouse to walk on top of even the softest snow. More special feathers grow on grouse legs like personal leg-warmers, and also near the bird’s beak, covering its nostrils. Scientists believe the feathered mustache enables grouse to breathe in warmer air than they otherwise would, thus keeping their internal temperature more stable.

Changes in weather bring about some changes in behavior as well. Warmer months find the birds resting in evergreens or thick brush. But in winter, when a foot or more snow covers the ground, grouse roost in the snow. The birds create small burrows which hide them from predators, offer protection from frigid winter winds, and keep them surprisingly snug and warm. Many a backcountry skier or snowshoer has been startled by a hidden grouse bursting noisily from its snowy lair.

The birds’ diet also changes seasonally from a summer sampling of green foliage, seeds, berries and insects, to the protein-rich dormant flower buds of trees such as aspen and birch. Grouse also won’t hesitate to eat the sweet flower buds of domestic trees like apples, and were at one time considered a pest in New England orchards. And so it’s actually not out of the question that within ruffed grouse territory, you might wake up one Christmas morning to find a ‘partridge’ in your pear tree.

Speaking of birds and the holiday season, it’s nearly time for the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count. Over the next few weeks, tens of thousands of volunteers around the country will join in this 113-year-old tradition, collecting data on the types and numbers of birds living in their area. This data allows scientists to monitor and track populations over time and space. Participants can be seasoned birders, first timers, or anything in-between. In Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake, and Zion National Park, the count takes place Saturday, December 20th. Other locations around the state will host their events between now and January 5th. To find a count near you, visit birds.audubon.org and click on Christmas Bird Count. For the Stokes Nature Center and Wild About Utah, this is Andrea Liberatore.

For the Stokes Nature Center and Wild About Utah, this is Andrea Liberatore.

Credits:

Theme: Courtesy & Copyright Don Anderson Leaping Lulu
Images: Courtesy Utah Division of Natural Resources
Text & Voice: Andrea Liberatore, Stokes Nature Center

Additional Reading:

Furtman, Michael. (1999) Ruffed Grouse: Woodland Drummer. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA.
https://www.amazon.com/Ruffed-Grouse-Woodland-Michael-Furtman/dp/0811731227

Rawley, E. V., W. J. Bailey, D. L. Mitchell, J. Roberson, and J. Leatham. 1996. Utah upland game. Publication number 63-12. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Modified text available online at: https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=bonasa%20umbellus

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (2012) Ruffed Grouse. Available online at: https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/45436.html

National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count:
https://birds.audubon.org/get-involved-christmas-bird-count-find-count-near-you

Utah Christmas Bird Counts:
https://utahbirds.org/cbc/cbc.html

Logan Christmas Bird Count:
Bridgerland Audubon Society Logan Christmas Bird Count 15 Dec 2012

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A Safari through Utah’s Ice Age

Wave-cut platforms from
Lake Bonneville preserved on
Antelope Island, Great Salt Lake, Utah.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia, Mark A. Wilson (Department of Geology, The College of Wooster), Photographer

Ground sloth of the Pleistocene
Paramylodon harlani
Texas Memorial Museum
University of Texas at Austin.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia
Licensed CCA Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Lake Bonneville compared to the
State of Utah.
Photo Courtesy https://wildlife.utah.gov/gsl/history/


Hi, I’m Ru Mahoney with Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon. As winter approaches I find myself anticipating the first really good snow, when our valley floors and mountain passes will be transformed overnight, relinquishing autumn’s riot of color for a glacial monochrome. As little as 12,000 years ago winter white was Utah’s perennial favorite, donned at the launch of the Pleistocene Epoch, a roughly 2 million year long period (give or take 10,000 years) marked by widely recurring glaciations.

The west has a reputation for being vast, but Ice Age Utah was even bigger. The mountains where higher and sharper. And the Great Salt Lake was submerged beneath the glacial waters of Lake Bonneville. At its largest, this massive body of water covered 20,000 square miles and was more than 980 feet deep. To put that into perspective, that measures about 9.5 million football fields wide by 4.5 Salt Lake Temples deep. And the Ice Age wildlife? Well it was much more akin to an African safari than anything you’re likely to find on your favorite shoreline trail these days.

The megafauna of Pleistocene Utah included a menagerie of beasts that are the stuff of legend. Familiar species like bison and big-horn sheep grazed among herds of mammoths and mastodons. Camels and horses – destined for extinction in North America – were the prehistoric prey of dire wolves and saber-toothed cats. Giant ground sloths the size of modern day elephants stood on two powerful hind legs to browse on shoreline foliage. And herds of muskoxen kept a wary eye on Arctodus, the Short-faced bear, a formidable predator more than 50% larger than any bear species living today.

The last 30,000 years of Utah’s Ice Age were characterized by increasingly volatile shifts in climate. The changing norms in temperature and abundance of liquid water created cyclical periods of transitioning habitat. Forests and forest dwellers gave way to deserts and their specialist species, before shifting back to forests again, all in mere millennia. While nomadic and highly adaptable species like muskoxen eventually moved north to more stable climates, the less adaptable fauna of the Ice Age were increasingly relegated to sharing shoreline habitat diminished by the swollen banks of Lake Bonneville.

As fluctuating glaciers pushed southward and then retreated, canyons like Big and Little Cottonwood were gouged into existence. Spring and summer glacier melt carried an abundance of freshwater into the lake, sometimes sweeping along with it the remains of prehistoric animals that had not lasted through the winter, laying them to rest in shoreline deltas where their fossilized remains are now uncovered and studied in alluvial sediment. For many of Utah’s Ice Age animals, the end of the Pleistocene brought extinction.

Today the ancient shoreline of Lake Bonneville is one of the most distinguishable geological features along the Wasatch front. This “bench”, as it’s now commonly known, is easily identifiable in cities all along the Wasatch and frequently boasts fine homes and even finer views. Which might go to show that lakeside property retains its value whether the lake is still there or not. So as you enjoy a winter hike or cross country ski along a shoreline trail this season, think about Utah’s last Ice Age and how our rich fossil record, with some of earth’s largest land mammals, paints a picture of an even wilder west.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Ru Mahoney.

Credits:
Image1: Courtesy Wikimedia, Mark A. Wilson (Department of Geology, The College of Wooster), Photographer
Image2: Courtesy Wikimedia,as licensed through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Image3: Courtesy https://wildlife.utah.gov/gsl/history/
Text:     Ru Mahoney, Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon.

Additional Reading:
https://geology.utah.gov/popular/general-geology/ice-age/ice-age-animals-of-utah/

https://serc.carleton.edu/vignettes/collection/37942.html

https://hugefloods.com/Bonneville.html

https://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/archives/snt42-3.pdf

https://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/articles/pdf/pleistocene_fossils_42-3.pdf

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Wily Coyotes

Coyote Canis latrans
Photo Courtesy & Copyright © 1991
Eric Gese, Photographer

Coyote Canis latrans
Photo Courtesy & Copyright © 1991
Eric Gese, Photographer

In many of the diverse Native American storytelling traditions, the wily coyote plays the same role over and over: that of the smart, sly trickster. For those who study coyote behavior, this characterization is well deserved. Coyotes are incredibly adaptable creatures – intelligent, observant, curious and well, wily.

Their ability to adjust how they live to fit their circumstances can be seen in almost every aspect of the coyote’s life. For starters, coyotes will eat just about anything. As omnivores and opportunistic feeders, coyotes might be found hunting creatures as diverse as small mammals, birds, snakes, mule deer fawns, insects, or fish, and also seek out grasses, berries and seeds. They can hunt alone or in packs, and are not below feasting on carrion, rummaging through your garbage, or raiding the cantaloupe patch.

The environments in which coyotes can be found are similarly diverse. While once restricted to the American West, coyotes are now widespread across all of North America and parts of Central America, and can be found in nearly every ecosystem from deserts to forests to urban areas from Belize to Alaska.

Sometimes called ‘song dogs’ these social creatures are known for their nighttime solos and choruses. Their scientific name, Canis latrans literally means ‘barking dog’, and their many vocalizations help pack members and families bond and communicate over long distances. Coyotes have strong family ties, especially during spring, when puppies are born to monogamous coyote couples.

Coyotes are territorial and defend their space vigorously – especially when breeding and denning. Mating occurs from January through February and after a gestation period of only 60 to 62 days, 3 to 12 pups are born blind and helpless in March or April. Young coyotes are nursed for 4-5 weeks at which point they transition to regurgitated meals brought by both parents. Youngsters tag along on family hunts at 8 weeks old and are able to hunt independently by fall.

Interestingly, studies have shown that even coyote breeding is adaptable – a phenomenon called ‘density dependent reproduction’. In areas where coyote populations are stable, females bear lower numbers of pups. But in areas where there is disturbance to the population – for example through increased predation or hunting – females have larger litters. On average, newborn pups have less than a 50% chance of surviving to adulthood due to threats from disease, predators, and starvation. It therefore makes sense for females to bear more offspring in areas where threats may be even greater.

To learn more about coyote adaptability, join the Stokes Nature Center for a tour of the USDA/National Wildlife Research Center Predator Research Facility on June 16th. For more information visit www.logannature.org. Thank you to the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation for supporting the research and development of this Wild About Utah topic.

For the Stokes Nature Center and Wild About Utah, this is Andrea Liberatore.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy and Copyright © Eric Gese
            National Wildlife Research Center, Predator Behavior and Ecology
Text:     Andrea Liberatore, Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon.


Additional Reading:

Stettler, Brett. 2009. Coyote (Canis latrans). Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Wildlife Notebook Series No. 19. Found online at:
https://wildlife.utah.gov/publications/pdf/2010_coyote.pdf

Video: Coyotes Cruise NYC, Science Friday & Mark Weckel, https://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10444