We want to give a final shout out to the 139 volunteers who joined us for our 14th annual Moose Day survey last month. As far as we know this was a record number of participants, as this Jackson Hole (and now Teton Valley) community tradition continues to grow!
In case you missed it, KHOL and Buckrail both reported on this year’s Moose Day. You can find the KHOL story here and the Buckrail story here.
In addition to these features, volunteer organizer France Clark shared her personalized post-Moose Day report with volunteers last week. Frances’s blog can be accessed here for those of you who didn’t receive it via email.
Moose in Cache Creek by Mitchell McClosky
While we won’t have official numbers until data is vetted and duplicated sightings are removed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, some highlights from the report include:
- 382 volunteer hours contributed to the survey
- 42 total survey areas covered
- 8 total Teton Valley, ID survey locations
- As many as 113 moose sightings, roughly on par with what we’ve observed in previous years (note: expect this number to change slightly after observations are vetted)
- Participation from two wildlife tour companies (Buffalo Roam and Ecotour Adventures)
- 13 participants on the Cache Creek “moose walk”
Anecdotally, the deep snow may have limited moose sightings in areas where moose are generally spotted.
There were no moose observed in Ditch Creek or around the airport. Moose were also not observed in the Town of Jackson. On the other hand, there were quite a few moose spotted along creek and river bottoms, including Cache Creek, the Snake River Corridor, and even Pacific Creek up north.
Final counts from 2021 and 2022 were 108 and 101, respectively, so we might expect this year’s count to be similar even if a few duplicate sightings are removed.
