Maine could be ending its controversial moose herd management strategy

By Julie Harris, Bangor Daily News Staff

Maine’s experiment to reduce winter tick populations in the western half of Zone 4 has one year left, but likely won’t be extended beyond that, according to the state’s moose biologist.

The so-called adaptive hunt in Wildlife Management District 4A in the North Maine Woods is meant to decrease the threat of winter ticks by reducing the number of cows and calves in that area. The real lessons from the effort will evolve as scientists crunch the data they have gathered.

Winter ticks have in the past killed large numbers of moose calves. With few options, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife decided to try reducing the herd in a small section of the state. But hunters and other moose enthusiasts have been critical of the state’s efforts, saying that bringing the herd down to low levels is dangerous and that the effort isn’t scientific enough.

“We did not attain the type of success rates we wanted to see to put the moose in decline [in that district],” state biologist Lee Kantar said as a reason for not extending the five-year project after next year. He emphasized that most of the calves monitored for the last couple of years have survived.

The goal of the program is to reach a 60 percent success rate — for hunters to kill 60 percent of the moose for which there are tags, he said.

Kantar has been monitoring moose populations in WMD 4 for 11 years by putting radio collars on “short yearlings,” defined as moose born last year that are not quite 12 months old, to track their survival. Kantar and his crew put collars on 72 short yearlings in February. 

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.

This coming February will be his 12th year on the radio collar program, which was supposed to end in five, then seven, he said. He uses as many resources as he can to manage the moose herd for hunters and nature lovers alike, he said.

The Zone 4A adaptive hunt uses a lot of resources, which is one of the reasons it will not continue. It ties up wardens and biologists who staff Clayton Lake and Pittston Farm tagging stations for the entire hunt, he said.

Jonathan Hilton of Gardiner said he is seeing far fewer moose in Zone 4 than he ever did. He has been in Zone 4 for most summers for the last 35 years, and has been on about a half dozen moose hunts there. He also traps in those woods, which he said in some years is crawling with ticks, depending on how mild the winter is.

“I will not put in for [a permit in] 4A because I don’t agree with it,” he said. “They are just spinning their wheels doing studies, but don’t know what the answer is.

“You’re killing off our moose herd,” Hilton said.

Hilton went with a friend who killed a bull this year in Zone 4, and was on another successful bull hunt two years ago there.

The hunters never saw a young bull in either hunt, he said. He fears that with not as many calves in the zone, there aren’t as many young bulls and it will negatively affect the future moose population of that area.

Hunters, some of whom have waited for years to get a permit, are spending a lot of time and money to hunt moose there and are frustrated when they are unsuccessful, he said.

Hilton, who guides hunters in that zone, said every moose hunt he has been on was successful except for one year, which was shooter error. He said every year is different; some you are tripping over cows and others you barely see any.

Josh Isabell of Mariaville, who is a hunter and said he has a science degree, questioned the scientific methodology of the 4A project. He said there needs to be a control zone identified — a zone where no hunting is allowed. He said the state biologists could use an area like Baxter State Park to study for five years and compare it with the adaptive zone.

Then the state would be comparing apples to apples, he said.

Kantar said the state has plans to do something similar. The data from the adaptive hunt will be analyzed to figure out survival information and reasons for animals dying and compare it with similar analyses in WMDs 8 and 2.

They will look at cow populations, winter ticks and forest practices as well.

Biologically it makes sense to increase permits in an area to control winter ticks, but it’s awkward socially, he said. The public is less receptive to the idea that the way to preserve moose is to reduce their population.

The state’s role is to manage moose populations as a public resource, which can be a delicate balance between ensuring the health of the herd and the social tolerance for how the animals are managed, he said.

He said there is a lot of moose data on the department’s website for anyone interested in the topic.

One thing everyone can agree on is that ticks are difficult to measure in the woods.

“Changes that occur, like climate change, affect ticks and moose,” Kantar said. “How do you measure success?”

That may depend on the individual person, he said.