Moose populations can outgrow their available habitat. Their forest and meadow homes need new plant growth to be healthy, and the moose thrive on eating those plants. The more moose that eat the plants, the less healthy the habitat; over time, there are too many moose with too little food available. Not only does this threaten the moose with starvation, but it also degrades the habitat.

In some parks, wardens use helicopters to search the wilderness for moose, temporarily capturing them using tranquilizer darts. They then try to install a radio collar on the moose and check their overall health. The wardens do this to keep track of the moose and whether their numbers are growing or decreasing. The whole procedure must occur within a few minutes, because while under sedation, a mooseís temperature begins to climb quickly. If its temperature gets too high, the moose may die.

Before you play Wild Moose Chase, activate the Managing Moose Populations Tutorial.

Read through the information to learn about the balance between moose population and their habitat, as well as the tasks wardens perform to locate, capture, assess and monitor the animals.

In Wild Moose Chase, you move a helicopter across a wilderness area to where moose are located. Then you are zoomed into the area where you use a pan function to find the tranquilized moose. After you assess its condition, you decide what tasks you have time to perform safely. After you make your decision, the screen reverts to the wilderness overview, and you move to another moose location.

A Help button is available to give you more information to make your decision about what tasks you have time to perform safely.