Decline in winter ticks on moose bodes well for hunters
The survey results indicate a healthy herd and lead to optimism that the number of moose hunting permits in 2018 will be similar to what was issued in 2017.
A young bull moose with half of its antlers shed runs through a clearing in the woods north of Moosehead Lake in this January 2016 file photograph. The moose was spotted on a moose collaring expedition with biologist Lee Kanter of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Staff Photo by Gabe Souza
AUGUSTA — Maine wildlife biologists are encouraged by recent data showing a significant decrease in winter ticks on moose, leading to optimism that the number of hunting permits in 2018 will be similar to last year’s total.
Winter Ticks have a Moose near death
State Wildlife Division Director Judy Camuso said winter-tick checks on moose captured by biologists three weeks ago found fewer ticks than during any checks over the past four years. She told the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Council on Friday that those results – combined with the hunter success rate last fall – are likely to keep the number of moose permits in 2018 close to the 2,080 issued in 2017.
Winter Ticks have a Moose near death
State Wildlife Division Director Judy Camuso said winter-tick checks on moose captured by biologists three weeks ago found fewer ticks than during any checks over the past four years. She told the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Council on Friday that those results – combined with the hunter success rate last fall – are likely to keep the number of moose permits in 2018 close to the 2,080 issued in 2017.
State biologists cut moose permits by 48 percent from 2013 to 2016 because of concerns about the moose survival rate from winter-tick infestation.
The parasite has decimated moose numbers in the Northeast. Maine’s moose population was estimated at 76,000 in 2011 but is now believed to be between 50,000 to 70,000, the IFW said.
A 68 PERCENT DROP
IFW biologists will recommend the permit total in March and the advisory council will vote on it later in the spring. Camuso said state biologists won’t know the full extent of moose mortality caused by winter ticks until May, when they have complete results from the moose-collar study.
Maine moose biologist Lee Kantar said the average number of ticks found on calves during the collaring this month had decreased 68 percent in the study area around Moosehead Lake during the same period last year, and 67 percent in the study area in far northern Aroostook County.
“This makes us cautiously optimistic,” Kantar said. “I would hope that the winter tick count has some relation to what we’ll see in the spring. The data suggests pretty strongly there is some threshold, that at some number of ticks you will have more mortality, and at some (lesser) number of ticks, you’ll have less mortality. We have less ticks, we should have less mortality.”
Moose ear loaded with Winter Ticks
Camuso added that the high success rate during the fall hunt was an excellent sign that moose numbers are strong, because a scarcity of moose would result in a low success rate.
Camuso added that the high success rate during the fall hunt was an excellent sign that moose numbers are strong, because a scarcity of moose would result in a low success rate.
Hunters shot 1,504 moose shot last year for a success rate of 72 percent. Historically, the average moose hunt success rate is 73 percent, the IFW said.
“I found that surprisingly high (given the warm hunting weather),” Camuso said. “I was pleased with that.”
Biologists collared more moose than in any other field period in the study’s five-year history – 83 in eight days this month, Camuso said. They did so during a blizzard – and set a record by collaring 22 moose in one day.
“It certainly doesn’t speak to a lack of moose,” Camuso said.
COLLAR STUDY INSIGHT
Camuso said the moose-collar study has shown that winter ticks have been a leading cause of death of calves and adult moose, although the five-year study may need to be continued in order to provide greater insight, something state biologists will discuss this spring. The same study also has been conducted for five years in New Hampshire and one year in Vermont.
The moose-collar study, which began around Moosehead Lake, allows biologists to find collared moose that die, collect data on the carcasses within 24 hours and determine the animal’s causes of death from a necropsy.
Stephen Philbrick, co-owner of Bald Mountain Camps Resort in Rangeley and a registered Maine guide, said he hopes as biologists determine hunting permits and moose densities they also consider wildlife watchers’ interest in moose.
“Do not discount the value of a live moose to see in the wild. Hundreds and thousands of people come to Maine to see that big boy,” Philbrick said.
Shawn Sage, president of the Buxton-Hollis Rod and Gun Club, also is worried. He wanted to know if there was anyway to combat the winter ticks, as pet owners do with domestic animals.
“It’s just concerning because it affects Maine’s moose population and the moose population puts a lot of money into the state,” Sage said.
Advisory Council Member Matthew Thurston of New Gloucester hopes the department continues the moose collar study.
“The Maine moose is part of the Maine image,” Thurston said. “You can get the opportunity to hunt them here, where in other places it costs $15,000 to $25,000 to do so. We want this opportunity to last forever.”
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/13/winter-ticks-exact-heavy-toll-new-england-moose/PmpQ3QAHm9C1imAxkzMhDM/story.html
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/13/winter-ticks-exact-heavy-toll-new-england-moose/PmpQ3QAHm9C1imAxkzMhDM/story.html
Ticks devastate Maine, N.H. (and Vermont) moose populations
An insidious pest is killing about 70 percent of moose calves across Maine and New Hampshire, and their deadly work is being aided by warming temperatures and shorter winters that allow the parasites to survive longer, scientists believe.
They are winter ticks, which attach themselves to a single moose by the tens of thousands. Adult females can expand to the size of a grape and engorge themselves with up to four milliliters of blood.
“The moose are being literally drained of blood. This is about as disgusting as it gets out there,” said Pete Pekins, chairman of the Natural Resources Department at the University of New Hampshire.
Pekins and UNH are at the center of the largest study of New England moose ever conducted, a three-state effort stretching across the woods of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont in which researchers are attaching tracking devices to the moose as part of an effort to learn how ticks are affecting them.
If the reduction continues, researchers said, the range of New England moose is likely to shrink northward. And for many moose that survive, the ravages of winter ticks could render them less healthy and less likely to reproduce.
“It’s like a sinister, evil horror movie,” said Lee Kantar, the Maine state moose biologist
“It’s like a sinister, evil horror movie,” said Lee Kantar, the Maine state moose biologist
Maine and New Hampshire teams recently captured a total of 123 moose cows and calves, attaching GPS and other electronic gear. In Vermont, which joined the program this year and began capturing moose Tuesday, the plan is to collar 60 animals.
The effort is a mixture of high tech and high drama as a helicopter swoops within 20 feet of a moose and fires an entangling net. The crew lands and then hobbles and blindfolds the animal, which researchers said has a calming effect, before collaring the moose and collecting the samples. The drug-free process takes 10 to 15 minutes.
Winter Tick infestation becoming more dense and more widespread
since 1992
About 76,000 moose roamed Maine in 2012, said Kandar, who did not have a current estimate. New Hampshire has about 4,000, down from a peak of about 7,500 in the early 2000s.
Winter Tick infestation becoming more dense and more widespread
since 1992
About 76,000 moose roamed Maine in 2012, said Kandar, who did not have a current estimate. New Hampshire has about 4,000, down from a peak of about 7,500 in the early 2000s.
And Vermont is down to 2,200, from a high of 5,000 animals in 2006, although much of that reduction was the deliberate result of hunting to bring the population into better balance with the habitat.
Now, the primary concern is winter ticks, which lie in wait on vegetation in the autumn — interlocked by the hundreds and thousands — until they attach themselves to a passing animal such as a moose.
Deer and other animals groom the ticks from their bodies. But for moose, which have not developed that ability, the insects become blood-sucking hitchhikers whose victims usually die in late winter and early spring.
“They’ll be on the moose in such large amounts, that the moose will literally scratch against trees and take the skin off,” said Wayne Derby, a master guide from Bethlehem, N.H. “Sometimes you’ll see 2 to 2½ square feet on the shoulders where the moose have rubbed off the fur.”
“They’ll be on the moose in such large amounts, that the moose will literally scratch against trees and take the skin off,” said Wayne Derby, a master guide from Bethlehem, N.H. “Sometimes you’ll see 2 to 2½ square feet on the shoulders where the moose have rubbed off the fur.”
Derby has a term for the tick-infested animals: ghost moose.
If winter starts even two weeks late, that extra time in the forest means that more ticks — which do not fare as well in the snow — will find more moose to ride.
“Climate change is having an effect,” said Kent Gustafson, wildlife program supervisor for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. “We’ve seen winters basically get shorter over the last two decades or so.”
None of the researchers said New England is on a path to losing its entire moose population — Maine has more of the animals than the other lower 47 states combined — but the trend became worrisome enough to prompt the unprecedented study.
New Hampshire and Maine are in the fourth year of a project to collar hundreds of animals with tracking devices and collect ticks, hair, blood, and fecal samples from them.
New Hampshire and Maine are in the fourth year of a project to collar hundreds of animals with tracking devices and collect ticks, hair, blood, and fecal samples from them.
Necropsies are often conducted later when they die, and the results are shared among the states to broaden the region’s understanding of why the population of one of the North Country’s iconic animals is declining.
Even with the drop, far more moose live in New England now compared with a century ago. Only 50 moose were estimated to be living in New Hampshire in 1950. But they rebounded across the region as pastures returned to forest, hunting declined, and a bounty of food became available when woodlands were churned up to fight spruce budworm disease in the 1970s and 1980s.
Now, moose also can be found in Massachusetts and parts of Connecticut, as well as throughout the three northern New England states. As the numbers of moose shrink again, scientists and state officials are not sitting on the sideline.
The study includes research in the Jackman and Greenville region of western Maine, where large numbers of calves are dying, and also in far northern Maine, where moose have not suffered as badly.
In New Hampshire, the study has focused north and east of the highest peaks of the White Mountains. And in Vermont, researchers are working in the northeast forests.
In New Hampshire, the study has focused north and east of the highest peaks of the White Mountains. And in Vermont, researchers are working in the northeast forests.
Pekins said the thinning numbers eventually might stem further decline. Fewer moose would mean fewer targets for winter ticks, which could lead to a reduction in their own population.
For now, however, the future for New England moose is shifting.
“As humans, we want everything to be in tidy, neat packages,” said Derby, the New Hampshire guide. “But nature’s not like that.”
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