Moose, with a bad case of ticks

The white fur is the under fur. This happens when Moose rub up against trees to get rid of ticks and lose their guard hairs. It can get very serious.

“The negative impact on moose from ticks is primarily anemia and blood loss. The amount of energy it takes to replace and rebuild new blood cells weakens the heard and this is coupled with the fact that the moose spends an inordinate amount of time to groom and dislodge these ticks when they become adults. They don't seem to notice them in the larval stage of nymph stage, but when they get bigger they’ll start rubbing on trees in February to dislodge these ticks. They are restless, they are uncomfortable, and they are spending a lot of time just trying to rub against trees instead of feeding and resting. This rubbing first will break their long guard hairs off which are pigmented at the distal portion brown or blackish but clear whitish at their base. When these long hollow guard hairs snap off due to the vigorous rubbing against trees trying to dislodge ticks it does leave this white-ish appearance to the coat and people will refer to these as ghost moose. It looks almost like an albino from a distance. Continued rubbing will actually scrape off the remaining root of the guard hair and the root bulb and leave just expose bare skin. This becomes an opportunity for moose to suffer and die of exposure, especially a calf, which doesn’t have a lot of fat reserves.’’

environmentaljournalismsmc2014.blogspot.ca/2014/12/vermon...

This photo was taken on 5 May 2015, when I went for a drive SW of Calgary. I wasn't able to meet botany friends as the afternoon walk was at a location across the city where I won't drive. So, instead, I decided to go for a more local drive outside the city. I was surprised to see this Moose feeding at the edge of woodland and felt sorry that it had a bad case of tick damage. Lol, even if this animal had a healthy brown coat, it would have looked similar to this photo last night, as we had a bit of snow! By this morning, there was no sign that it had snowed.