The adaptive moose hunt

By V. Paul Reynolds

In 2020, in an experimental effort to reduce winter tick infestations in Maine moose, the Maine Fish and Wildlife Department undertook the so-called “adaptive moose hunt.” Simply put, the object was to deliberately reduce cow moose populations in a specific wildlife zone ( Zone Four) in an effort to correspondingly reduce winter tick severity in moose.

Hunters were the management tool used to cull female moose numbers. Moose research in other parts of North America showed that moose that live in low-population densities had fewer ticks.

This fall marks the final year of the 5-year adaptive hunt. The obvious questions therefore are: 1) How did it work? and 2) Where do we go from here?

Lee Kantar, Maine’s lead moose research biologist, says that “The decision after evaluating the five years would be to propose additional years, take no action, or redesign.” Kantar indicates that no decision has yet been made on how to proceed. He does say that he does not see the program continuing as it is currently drawn up.  

Apparently the jury is still out as to how successful the adaptive unit hunt has been in reducing cow moose numbers.  Kantar says, “We did not attain the type of (hunter) success rates we wanted to see to put the moose in decline in Zone Four.” The good news is that, for whatever reason, last year was the second year in a row that tick numbers were lower and also showed one of the highest moose survival rates since 2006.  

There were some years during the early days of the adaptive hunt that annual calf mortality due to ticks was over 50 percent. This is a serious statistic. Moose populations can not long endure with low calf survival rates like that.

MDIF&W has been studying the winter ticks on moose since 2014. The tick is the leading cause of calf mortality. Tick infestations on adult cow moose also results in lower reproduction, fewer twins born and calves being born underweight.

The winter tick is an insidious parasite. It attaches to the moose in the fall, and because it remains aboard the big host critter for its entire life cycle, it hangs on well into spring! To make matters worse, the tick “questing” season coincides with the moose mating season.

Moose biologists have their critics. There are those, some with credentials, who believe that the adaptive hunt was undertaken without adequate science. It is a complex game management issue, not unlike so many others, that is at the mercy of Mother Nature and, of course, the ultimate variable: the weather and climate conditions.

With one more season to go in the adaptive hunt experiment, we can expect Kantar and his team to share some insights and recommendations later in 2025 when all the data has been collected and studied.

Meantime  Kantar, and all of the state game biologists on his team, deserve our appreciation for their dedication and hard work and determination to find well-founded answers to tough and, at times, perplexing wildlife management challenges.

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has authored three books. Online purchase information is available at www.sportingjournal.com.