This fall it will have been four years since Maine wildlife managers introduced the so-called Adaptive Unit moose hunt in Wildlife Management District 4.
This was an experimental hunt, using moose hunting permits to deliberately reduce moose densities, and, in so doing, trying to reduce winter tick populations that were decimating moose calves.
At the time, state moose biologist Lee Kantar said that leading up to the experimental hunt the number of calves born each year had dropped significantly since the 1990s. In the worst year, 87 percent of collared calves died of tick infestations in the spring of 2022.
Well, guess what?
Today, according to Kantar, the moose calf mortality in the test area, WMD 4, was at 8 percent for the spring of 2024.
This new welcome number of only 8 percent mortality is derived from data obtained this spring from 71 collared overwintering calves in WMD 4.
The mortality rate in 2023 was 28 percent, Kantar said:
“Eight percent is phenomenal, given the last decade of impacts from winter tick and some very poor survival during some years. This should equate to some positive population growth across the moose core range. It also demonstrates that when winter tick numbers are low, survival can be very high. It is also likely that given a lackluster winter with very little snow, especially January through March, that (energy) drain was minimal for moose, helping to keep winter mortality low overall.”
To some folks, who may not pay much attention to the nuances of managing wildlife, all of this may seem counter-intuitive: How can you save moose by culling populations?
Calf recruitment or survival is the name of the game. You cannot for long have a healthy, sustaining moose population if the survival rate of yearlings is low, or when you are losing 50 percent of spring calves.
To his credit, as a scientific wildlife biologist Kantar knows it might be presumptuous or premature to take a victory lap.
He hedges his bets and acknowledges that part of this good news may be attributable simply to natural occurrences, an easy season for overwintering moose. But, dagnabit, you know that in his heart of hearts, he must be smiling about this good news.
The truth, as it so often does, no doubt lies somewhere in the middle. The marked improvement in moose calf survival numbers is probably a combination of both weather and the Adaptive Unit hunt strategy.
We’ll know more in the spring of 2025.
V. Paul Reynolds 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.
