Maine Has 25,000 Moose, Or Is It 60,000
January 5, 2008
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife estimates that Maine has between 25,000 and 30,000 moose. A new method of estimating moose populations that is used in New Hampshire, bumps the estimate up to 60,000 prompting outcries from some to triple or quadruple the number of permits being awarded.
In an article in the Bangor Daily News, some are saying the state needs to issue more moose hunting permits because there are too many moose. On the other end, animal protection groups such as the Wildlife Alliance of Maine is saying that they don’t believe much of anything the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife does or says and puts little stock in their work.
Maine democrat Rep. Tom Watson says increasing moose permits would be entering a bloodbath.
Rep. Tom Watson, a Bath Democrat, warned that without the hard science to back up the need for a dramatic increase in moose permits, sportsmen would be walking into a blood bath.
I’m not sure exactly what that means but the truth is very few of us know and understand the methods used in determining game populations like deer and moose. It’s not “exact” science because the most accurate methods are obviously cost prohibitive. So biologists put together glorified logarithms and each year take collected data and plug it in to the formulas and come up with some numbers.
Evidently there is a new method being used in New Hampshire that relies on reported information from hunters afield. Whether it’s accurate or not remains to be seen but the difficulty comes in changing methods midstream.
So, what should we do? It would seem that switching methods one year and tripling or quadrupling moose permits the same year would be irresponsible and rash. Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves first if the new method utilizes the best available science and provides more accurate information? If so then how do we implement the change?
George Smith, executive director of the Sportsmans Alliance of Maine put it this way.
“It’s just not acceptable to not know how many moose we’ve got,”
Is it feasible to transition accurately from one method of population estimates to another or do we need to go afield and to the air and begin a costly and time consuming effort to count moose? These are all decisions that will need to be made and those decisions based on what is best for Maine and the moose management program.
Tom Remington
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