As a young wildlife biologist, Adam Mortensen has worked in the mountains of New Mexico, the high desert of Northern California and the wilderness of Isle Royale, where he lived out of a tent and backpacked daily to study wolves.

Now he will ride a snowmobile through the forests of far northeastern Minnesota to help solve the mystery of disappearing moose.

Mortensen, a Wisconsin native, will live in Grand Marais for the next five years to help identify how yearling and 2- and 3-year-old moose contribute to restoring Minnesota’s moose population, which is half the size of what it was 20 years ago.

That age group is in need of study, experts say, and it’s hoped that the results will help identify habitat and wildlife management strategies to benefit the twig-eating animals called mooz by

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