If you ask a wildlife official – moose are relatively new arrivals to Colorado.
In the late 1970s,wildlife managers released two dozen moose captured in other states into Routt National Forest near Walden. Before that, moose may have occasionally wandered in and out of Colorado, but didn’t have a permanent home here, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s official moose webpage.
But a researcher at the University of Colorado says that history is all wrong – and that moose have been part of Colorado’s ecosystem for centuries.
William Taylor is an archeologist and associate professor of Anthropology at CU Boulder. He studied moose remains, along with Indigenous and historical records, that suggest moose roamed Colorado long before their reintroduction in the ‘70s. The research was recently published in the Journal of Biogeography.
William joined Erin O’Toole to talk about the research and the questions it raises about the right way to treat the roughly 3,500moose in Colorado today.
