Climate change

CLIMATE CHANGE

Humans and wild animals face new challenges for survival because of climate change.

More frequent and intense drought, storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans can directly harm animals, destroy the places they live, and wreak havoc on people’s livelihoods and communities.

What about the king of the forest?

Moose face a triple threat with our changing climate.

Moose are cold climate animals as their biology has created them with a double fur coat making them thrive in cold temperatures. Sweden has the fourth biggest moose population in the world thanks to our cold climate and big, untouched wilderness. But the overall moose populations is unfortunately declining worldwide.

Even though moose have a good life in Sweden they are starting to face unknown challenges. Increasing temperatures with short winters, changing habitats and increasing mortality due to the explosion of parasite populations and their diseases may make it very hard to maintain a viable moose population in the nearest future. Global warming and higher temperatures heat-stress moose that only tolerates up to 24 degrees before overheating under their big fur coat.

Moose population world wide

For more than 30 years, the moose population have declined in US and for the last 10 years in Sweden.

Europe’s moose population and arctic moose are luckily overall stable for now. A once common type of moose called the Caucasian Moose went extinct in the beginning of the 20th century due to loss of habitat and over hunting. In Mongolia and China over-hunting also drove the moose almost extinct in these areas. While predators such as wolfs and bears can be categorized as a more natural cause of death, there as also other human induced causes of moose deaths like climate change which 97% of climate scientist agree is humanity’s fault. Climate change and global warming results in increased temperatures and better conditions for some parasites like brain worm and especially the blood thirsty ticks.

Moose and ticks

The winter tick is the moose’s worst nightmare. The tick attaches to a host and a female tick can lay 3000 egg in one season.

The winter tick normally dies back over winter but the increased temperatures and mild winter makes the population thrive. Moose with heavy tick infections will rub their fur down to the skin raw trying to get the ticks off, making them look white when their outer coat rubs off. Locals call them ghost moose. Studies on moose show that a moose can have an average of 40000 ticks. The highest amount reported was on a calf that died from anemia due to 100000 ticks sucking away all its blood. Ticks can suck a dangerously large amount of blood from 200 to 600 times their body weight. Ticks spread infections through their saliva and deadly diseases such as borelia and TBE.

A greener future

We work towards introducing sustainable and green choices in as many aspects of our park as possible.

We wish to raise awareness about what is happening in the world and to our animals, especially the moose. We try to create a bio diverse moose park and attracting and caring for nearby wildlife with food and habitat. Feeding our small, local birds helps the beautiful symbiosis between moose and birds. The birds will fly to the moose when they lay down to rest and pick through its thick fur to eat the parasites.

We hope to secure our moose calves a environmentally stable future since nature’s evolution and adaption can not keep up with humans ability to affect the climate negatively. We fight for a brighter future for the moose.

Our moose during a cold winter

In this little slow motion video you can meet Helga, Hilda and Zlatan during a heavy snow fall. You can see the details of their movements and how majestic the moose really are and how much they love their cold climate!

How can you help?

Many of our kind guests often ask us how they can help us in our work and to help the moose.

You can learn more about our nature, wildlife and how everything is connected through our nature guiding. Join us for a respectful and informative walk!

We are selling environmentally friendly products in our store and online shop to encouraging people to shop greener and understand the positive impact they can leave.

Changing habits can be difficult but we promise you that it’s easier than getting nature back once it is gone. There are many both big and small ideas following the link.

You can plan your visit to our park with a greener transportation method such as taking the train or perhaps renting an electric car if you come from abroad.