Project Field Supervisor
Contract – 1994 to 1997

BACKGROUND

Moose were relatively common in Banff National Park in the early 1940’s and remained so throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. Their numbers began to rapidly decline during the 1970’s to the point where sightings in the Bow River valley during annual aerial and ground surveys became rare between 1985 and 19971.

The reason for the decline is complex involving a variety of factors but simply put, the moose populations’ rate of mortality exceeded its recruitment. The reason for the increase in the rate of mortality is also complex having coincided with a number of ongoing and recent events including:

  • Long-term habitat loss through forest succession aided by fire suppression
  • Increases in the prevalence of giant liver fluke, Fascioloides magma, infection, a parasite
    hosted and shed by elk, but harmful to infected moose
  • Increases in the numbers of elk in the central Bow valley
  • Wolf recolonization in the mid 1980’s with a corresponding increase in predation