HOUGHTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Michigan Technological University researchers recently discovered that four moose died after getting stuck in a deep mud pit on Isle Royale over the past 12 months.
The Wolves and Moose of Isle Royale project posted on their Facebook page that one of their researchers found a bull moose that was stuck in the mud on the shore of Lake Ojibway.
The researchers said the moose had probably been stuck for several days before it died.
"When we sent a team back to check on the animal, they discovered that this moose was not the only victim of the lake - they found the remains of three other animals that had suffered the same fate over the past 12 months (their leg bones were still stuck in the mud)," the Facebook post read.
Moose are common to that area in the spring and summer because they feed on the aquatic plants in Lake Ojibway. However, a beaver dam had been holding the waters back for decades and it blew out in November of 2017, the researchers said.
The dam was originally built in the 1950s and it has not been repaired by the beavers.
"Since then, the lake has continued to drain, and as the water level dropped, it has exposed an increasingly large area of deep mud along the lake’s former shoreline," the researchers said.
The Wolves and Moose of Isle Royale is a long-running Michigan Tech research project.
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