Summer Moose Day Set July 18

Interested citizens can help gather data about moose near Laramie as part of the first Summer Moose Day Saturday, July 18.

The University of Wyoming Biodiversity Institute requests that citizen scientists sign up for survey routes in the Vedauwoo/Happy Jack area and the Snowy Range. Four routes are designed for driving, and 42 routes are intended for hiking. Volunteers must register at www.wyomingbiodiversity.org/moose-day by Monday, July 13. They also must attend one of two training sessions the week of the event.

Citizen scientists will hike or drive designated routes between dawn and mid-morning and record observations of moose or their signs. They will help to answer questions such as: How many cow-calf pairs of moose are in the area and how are herds doing?

Summer Moose Day is a follow-up event to Winter Moose Day that took place in February. Nearly 50 citizen scientists surveyed 21 routes and found more than 40 moose or signs of moose.

Biologists at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and at UW who study the moose herd in the Laramie area are only beginning to understand how many moose are around, their densities, their reproduction rates, their summer habitat quality, their winter ranges and how that all changes over time, says Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute project coordinator.

“Both the Summer and the Winter Moose Day events are geared toward increasing our understanding of Laramie-area moose, and involving the public in asking and answering these questions,” Marsicek says.

The Summer Moose Day data will be provided to biologists for the management and conservation of moose. Additionally, data will be loaded into the Wyoming Biodiversity Citizen Science Initiative (WyoBio) website at www.wyobio.org and will be available for public viewing.

Summer Moose Day is coordinated by the UW Biodiversity Institute, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database.