
What's a Ghost Moose? How Ticks Are Killing an Iconic Animal (2015) - Red_Tarsius
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150601-ghost-moose-animals-science-new-england-environment/
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Red_Tarsius
Context: I've recently come across yet another side effect of climate change:
the moose population is being endangered by ticks (and other parasites) who
can now thrive in winter. The younglings get covered in tens of thousands of
ticks and die of blood loss or starvation. – _paraphrased from r /collapse_

Highlights of the article:

> _Ghost moose [is] an animal so irritated by ticks that it rubs off most of
> its dark brown hair, exposing its pale undercoat and bare skin._

> _In recent years in New England, ghost moose sightings have become
> increasingly familiar._

> _The reason is likely climate change [...] which is ushering in shorter,
> warmer winters that are boosting the fortunes of winter ticks [...] One
> moose can house 75,000 ticks, which are helping to drive a troubling rise in
> moose deaths, especially among calves._

> _April has become "the month of death." That's when calves, skinny and
> malnourished from the lean winter and exhausted from carrying thousands of
> ticks for five months, are most likely to drop dead._

> _The tick 's life cycle begins in November, when larval ticks climb on
> plants, waiting for the two meter moose to brush past. The ticks clamber
> aboard and feast on warm moose bodies until early spring, when they drop off
> their host._

> _In the past, after long New England winters that lasted well into April,
> the ticks would jump off moose, hit spring snow, and die, [...] but warmer,
> shorter winters means those ticks are more likely to land on bare, snowless
> ground, which lets them live another day — and possibly flourish._

> (In one case) _The ticks had taken so much blood that her starving body was
> raiding its bone marrow, muscles, and even heart for precious protein. The
> moose, for all intents and purposes, was eating itself alive._

