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pds314 t1_iu4emak wrote

Reply to comment by iayork in Is it possible that only 4 moose imported to Newfoundland in 1904 could produce a viable modern population of 110,000 today? by SlipCritical9595

Keep in mind moose routinely cross water. It isn't totally impossible they can get to Newfoundland from the mainland on their own. The shortest distance between Newfoundland and the mainland is 17.5 km which is not exceptional for the distance moose can swim.

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iayork t1_iu4jnqt wrote

Sure, it’s possible there was outside gene flow (the genetics papers I linked address some of that). But the question is is it possible, not how far can moose swim.

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spiderfarmer t1_iu4glei wrote

Why would a moose do that though?

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DomovoiP t1_iu4kjmi wrote

Moose likes yummy seaweed, swims out some distance to eat some. Crazy current drags the moose out to sea, it gets disoriented. Moose then swims until it Finds a New Land.

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jumpmanzero t1_iu4mqno wrote

And two of them, with a length of seaweed between them, could absolutely bring along a coconut.

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Isotope_Soap t1_iu4t36c wrote

Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?

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herbdoc2012 t1_iu4uzeq wrote

On the backs of small parrots flying between the fjiords is how coconuts migrate as we all know that!

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DragonBank t1_iu5a683 wrote

The hard part is a female and male both doing this in a period they can viably reproduce and meeting eachother on the islands. I'd assume 100s of moose would need to attempt this before a population occurs.

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PacoTaco321 t1_iu5zfwk wrote

It is a low probability of happening, but species spreading to a completely different part of the world from floating thousands of miles across an ocean and having a viable population in that new area also happened a lot more often than you'd probably think, so two moose swimming on their own 18 km is not too much of a stretch.

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mdielmann t1_iu63iv0 wrote

If a small population was already there, say, introduced by people, every moose that migrated there would be a breeding candidate.

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Ihavebadreddit t1_iu4zofr wrote

A deer swam from NB to PEI recently. 12.9 km roughly

Only to be hit by a truck once it reached the island.

There are no deer in PEI

Well.. there was 1 for a few hours.

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mattdjamieson t1_iu6v1ec wrote

It’s true they send people over Confederation bridge to make sure no deer are sneaking over on the highway. Lol

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GuanoLoopy t1_iu4k3ei wrote

It's not like they are thinking, 'hey let's go for a long swim', but they do go into water to eat and swim and if they got turned around or a current brought them away from land or a storm came upon them, they have no choice but to keep swimming. So some very small percentage could stumble upon it that way. All you need are a couple (or 4) to get a population started, and if some new moose got added to the genepool via a water crossing that would help a genetically bottlenecked population tremendously.

And at first glance 110K from 4 moose seems like a rather large population boom. But they can produce 1-2 offspring per year, so not accounting for deaths and a best case scenario that can grow rather quickly, and if you can sustain 110K moose there are way more resources available than needed for a much smaller population so resource constraints wouldn't be a problem at least. A few decades and some luck is all they needed.

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BigZombieKing t1_iu599d5 wrote

In the rut, a bull moose will come from that distance or more to the call of a cow moose. Plowing through the thickest bush, swimming through anything and just generally ignoring the terrain.

Once there were cow moose across the water, I think bull moose crossing would be inevitable.

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