Moose die-off mystery tackled with high-tech tracking

The B.C. government is hoping to find out more about why moose numbers are declining by tagging the animals with devices that will allow biologists to track them down when they die.

Doug Heard, a wildlife biologist with the B.C. provincial government, told CBC's Daybreak Norththat his department will beradio-collaring 240 moose calves in the central Interioras part of the life-and-death monitoring study.

"One needs to be careful, but we have a system for doing it," he said.

Some of the moose will be darted and tranquilized, but a substantial number will be caught from the air.

"We'llnet them from a helicopter shoot a netover the moose, from a helicopter," Heard said."Once the moose gets tangled up, we'll go and handlethe mooseand put the collar on and let it go."

The radio collar monitoring systemwill trigger an email alert to provincial wildlife biology staff when the moose stops moving for more than 24 hours.

Staff will thenmobilize to attempt to find the presumed-dead animal's body. About 10 per cent of the collared moose are expected to die each year of the study, which should last for the approximatelife of the collars around five years.

Heard said predatorscould complicate matters, as wolves feeding on the body of a dead moose might move the collar around, but the study should still yield important clues as to what is contributing to the decline ofmoose near and far.

"In many parts of the central Interior, moose numbers were much lower in 2011 than in previous years, specifically 2005 and the late1990s," Heard said.

"In a more general picture, moose numbers have beendeclininginmanyparts of North America and even in Europe.There might be big broad generalities that we're going to find here."

The studyis being split among eight regions ranging from Kamloops to Smithers, to Mackenzie and Prince George with around 30 animals selected in each of the regions, and biased towards thefemales.

"The survival of female moose is the most influentialfactor affectingoverall moose population dynamics," Heardsaid.