Maine's moose population peaked at about 100,000 a quarter century ago, but it's down to between 60,000 and 70,000 today. The culprit behind the decline isn't man, at least not directly, explains Down East magazine. Instead, it's a villain no bigger than a sesame seed: the winter tick. The story focuses on the efforts of Lee Kantar, the state's first dedicated moose biologist, to help the moose survive, and it's a grim business. Winter ticks latch onto moose by the tens of thousands in fall and stay all winter. Calves are hit the hardest—so drained by blood loss and energy spent scratching that many don't survive their first year. "Moose severely infested with winter ticks are sometimes called 'ghost moose' by scientists, because in rubbing against trees and rocks trying to get the parasites off, they scrape off all their fur," writes Jesse Ellison.
Kantar has watched the problem worsen as Maine's winters shorten and falls grow longer, giving ticks more time to find a host. In some study areas, more than three-quarters of calves die each winter. To fight back, the state has tried something that might seem counterintuitive: issuing more hunting permits in certain zones. What's more, hunters are encouraged to take down females, another counterintuitive notion. But the thinking goes that fewer moose mean fewer hosts for ticks, easing the burden on those that remain. The story notes the personal toll all of the above takes on Kantar. Between hunting season and tick season, he winds up spending a lot of time with dead moose.
- "No, I'm not OK," he says. "It sucks. We live in a human-impacted system. We don't live in a natural state. We have a warming climate and a lot of ticks. They're going to kill the calves. While science has an answer, it doesn't mean it has a fix." Read the full story.
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