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ODFW wildlife biologist Pat Matthews with a member of the team that helped collar a moose in northeast Oregon.

(Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife/File)

JOSEPH -- Oregon's

appears to be doing well, in spite of an unknown number of deaths in recent years

.

The herd is scattered across parts of the Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman national forests and probably numbers about 60, said Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. That's up from 30 in 2006.

Biologists use words like secretive, solitary and elusive to describe the ungainly-looking creatures, which migrated into northeastern Oregon from the Spokane-Pullman region. To come here, they had to cross the wide-open Palouse Prairie into Oregon's Blue Mountains.

These are Shira's moose, the smallest subspecies in North America. Even so, males still tip the scales at 1,000 pounds, midsize when shoulder-to-shoulder with a typical 1,500-pound Alaska-Yukon bull moose.

The Alaska-Yukon variety are the largest North Amerian subspecies. Female Shira's moose can weigh 700 to 800 pounds.

Oregon's moose tend to be dark brown or black, a color scheme occasionally broken by grayish-white hair on the undersides of their back legs.

Moose have been reported from time to time in this corner of Oregon for years, but the first recorded sighting was along the Imnaha River in 1960, biologists say. Three moose calves were born in northeastern Oregon in 2005.

Their numbers began rising about the same time gray wolves started migrating into Oregon from Idaho and reproducing here.

Oregon's moose population is centered in western Wallowa County. Still, they wander into Union and Umatilla counties and can be found in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness north of the Oregon-Washington boundary. Moose also have been spotted in the 560-square-mile Eagle Cap Wilderness, as well.

The public is most apt to encounter Oregon moose along Oregon 204 between Elgin and Weston, and on U.S. Forest Service Road 62 north of Elgin, Dennehy said.

Biologists became aware of the carotid worm parasite problem in about 2010 while capturing a moose in Wallowa County to fit it with a radio collar. The animal died during the capture, and an autopsy revealed the presence of the worms.

Carotid worms are transmitted to moose by horsefly bites. The parasites travel through the blood vessels to the brain, sometimes triggering poor coordination, blindness and other problems.

-- Richard Cockle