Overview
- Researchers received a collar mortality alert and the moose was discovered dead last weekend on his usual cattle pasture in the Naturpark Nuthe-Nieplitz after returning there for the rut.
- A post‑mortem at the Leibniz Institute identified severe flank trauma and a football‑sized hematoma consistent with blunt force, but examiners could not pinpoint whether cattle, another bull, or an accident caused the wounds.
- Bert had been GPS‑collared and continuously tracked since 2019, producing an unusually complete long‑term telemetry record that documented his night activity, water‑cooling behavior, and selective road crossings.
- His death reduces Brandenburg’s known wild moose number from five to four and highlights how each collared individual carries outsize weight for population monitoring in the region.
- Researchers say they are willing to collar another moose but caution that obtaining a transmitter and mounting a replacement collar involves funding and logistical hurdles that make an immediate successor uncertain.