2022 was the worst year for moose hunting in Maine
Mainers have complained that moose seem harder to find compared to the early days of hunting.
And they can’t be wrong, as 2022 was the least successful season for hunters since modern moose hunting began in 1980.
Sixty-two percent of hunters (2,199 of 3,530) have successfully killed a moose during the traditional statewide hunt over the past year, according to preliminary data recently released by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The previous low of 65.3 percent was reached in 2014.
The harvest followed a 2021 season in which 68 percent of hunters were successful, which ranked third lowest at the time. This is part of an ongoing decline in moose hunting success, with less than 70 percent of hunters shooting a third moose in the past four years.
Trying to understand these numbers in the context of what’s going on with moose, habitat, and hunters in Maine is complicated.
“We’ve changed so many things since the moose hunt began that they’re not really comparable over time,” said DIF&W moose biologist Lee Kantar, the state wildlife expert.
DIF&W assumed responsibility for the rulemaking process for elk hunting in 1999 and Kantar said frequent changes have been made to seasonal dates, quotas, weather and even hunting strategies since then.
Kantar said Maine has seen an overall decline in its moose population due to winter ticks. The insects kill large numbers of vulnerable calves each year in some of the state’s best moose habitats.
“There are fewer elk,” Kantar said, noting that the state’s most recent estimate of 75,000 elk was from 2012.
“If we didn’t have winter ticks, we could have as many elk as humans ever wanted,” he said. “It’s a problem we’ve had here for some time and it’s reflected in a slow decline in the moose population.”
Kantar said there are still more than enough animals for hunters to bag a moose. The state has increased the number of permits from 2,080 in 2017 to 4,030 in 2021. 4,050 permits were issued last season.
That’s 95 percent more hunters in the forests over a five-year period.
“Broad permit changes have always been based on what we believe can be harvested,” Kantar said.
There are a variety of factors that affect the hunter’s success, including the timing of the seasons, location, weather, the presence of other hunters, vehicle traffic, and the hunter’s efforts. And the majority of hunters only have six days to hunt.
Kantar said many hunters’ ignorance of moose habitat and behavior, coupled with a reliance on an outdated belief system dating back to the 1980s – when clearcutting was more common, the animals were more visible and success rates higher – are key issues.
“Part of the success depends on the behavior of the hunters,” Kantar said. “There’s a lot of homework. There is much to do.”
He also said that the nature of elk hunting is such that even with adequate preparation, sometimes a hunt just doesn’t materialize.
Hunters once again found it difficult to bag a moose in the second year of the state’s adaptive unit hunt. These numbers are calculated separately.
This multi-year effort, focused on the western half of Wildlife Management District 4, is part of a DIF&W initiative to determine whether population thinning in a given region will reduce the spread of winter ticks and thereby reduce calf mortality.
Last year, nearly 90 percent of collared chicks caught in Maine died from ticks before spring.
In the three weeks of Adaptive Hunt 2022, 520 antlerless permits were distributed to moose hunters. Only 125 or 36 percent captured an animal.
Among them were 18 percent and 17 percent for the second week of October and the hunt in November, respectively. In the first week of October, 40 percent of the hunters were successful. Last year it was a total of 52 percent.
“Cow hunting, especially after the rut, is challenging,” Kantar said, referring to the post-mating period.
Despite the department’s efforts to provide hunters with information about hunting cows and calves during adaptive hunting on its website, there were challenges in killing moose as part of the study.
“It’s complicated, but the nature of our adaptive hunt is that we have space to make some changes if needed and we’ll be looking at all of those things,” Kantar said of the discussions in departments over the coming weeks in preparation for the determination of the parameters for the hunts 2023.
“With moose, the driving force of the landscape is the winter tick,” Kantar said. “We have to think about how we can get through this.”
