Nowadays, it all about trophy hunting.

(And I am), I'd rather it's wild game that lived it's life free and died quickly with a bullet or arrow, not crammed into cages and pens, pumped full of antibiotics and fattened on grains, tortured and eventually slaughtered for meat.

And FYI, it's illegal to waste game animal meat in every state. If you shoot it, you have to either use the meat, or donate it to a food shelf. Killing a deer, elk, bear or moose only for it's head or hide is grounds for heavy fines, gun confiscation, and revocation of hunting privileges for years.

has allowed the Tick populations to flourish. Moose, weakened by Blood loss from the massive numbers of Ticks, are left weakened and at risk of Winter-kill.
It's a big problem in Maine as well.

This makes me incredibly sad. I am moving to the pacific north west soon and all I can think about is seeing a moose (how silly!). I hope that the population over there is doing better than in Minnesota and Maine...

when I lived up north (Canada), we had some years there was just SO much snow, the moose slowly starved to death because they couldn't reach any food through the snow, and were exhausted from trudging through it. They started showing up all over town trying to get some food. It was sad. Farmers were actually bringing them bales of hay. With Global Warming, we can expect more snowy winters and more freak dumps of snow that completely cover all food supplies for foraging animals like moose and deer.