Moose in western washington?

[Okanagan]

In the Fall bull moose travel incredible distances, presumably looking for a cow.  In about 1990 a bull moose hung out around the town of Blaine, WA.  It made the local news and I saw his tracks by the football field. 

A friend who grew up on a farm in the lower Skagit Valley said that twice over the years they had a bull moose in their pasture.   

Maybe they will eventually establish a resident population in Western WA.  Moose have been extending their range southward for the past 80 years or so.  (A factor is apparently logging which opens much more browse.)   Old timers in the Canadian Okanagan Valley said that there were zero moose there in the 1950s, but now there are enough that the area has a general open season for moose.

[Mtnwalker]

I've wondered the same thing in the past, seems like western WA would be great moose habitat but when you look at distribution maps they don't really inhabit the coastal region much until you get up close to the Yukons

[Okanagan]

That moose distribution map is a little bit stingy with moose territory.  While generally accurate, there are quite a lot of moose farther west than it shows in British Columbia.  I'd say the same for WA based on some we've seen west of the Crest Trail, though not far west.

Of course, if I had my choice, I'd stay out of the wet as well.  It would probably take a moose population high enough on the east side to push some out into new territory, even if the territory is not quite as hospitable.

[kball4]

Correction the pictures are of a moose crossing the Skagit river in 2010.  There was rumored to be feral pigs by Wynochee.