Warming blamed for Minn. moose losses

Wally Kuehl knows something is wrong with the moose. "I don't see one-tenth as many of them as I used to," he says as he digs into breakfast at Our Place, a restaurant and bar here.

Twenty years ago, he'd regularly see 20 or more moose daily on a road he drives frequently, says Kuehl, 60, who hauls pulp wood. "I've seen half a dozen all this winter," he says.

Kuehl has heard that studies suggest that moose, an iconic symbol of the state, are dying because climate change makes them more vulnerable to parasites. He doesn't buy it. "I just think it's a cycle," he says. "People who live here don't believe in global warming."

Damn global warming. To all my Moose brothers: Hang in there!