Anyone who has seen an 8-foot-tall moose loom up out of the darkness alongside a road knows that Maine’s largest antlered animal is hazardous. In recent years, more than a dozen people have lost their lives to moose crashes.

Four people already have been killed this year, putting the state on track to tie its 1998 record for the deadliest moose season with five deaths.Now, grieving families are calling on state officials to reduce the risk by liberalizing the hunting season and killing off nuisance moose.

Maine’s roads, however, can never be guaranteed safe, according to state wildlife biologist Karen Morris.

“The only way to never have a moose accident is to eliminate all the moose, or eliminate all the vehicles,” she said Wednesday.

The state manages the moose population by balancing biology and safety with the desire for hunters and wildlife watchers to see moose. Morris estimates that the state’s herd includes 29,000 moose – about a third more than 20 years ago.

There’s a good reason that convenience stores from Kittery to Fort Kent sell postcards and T-shirts and all manner of trinkets decorated with the state animal, she said.

“People like moose,” Morris said. “They like to hunt them, and they like to see them.”

Moose hunters spend millions of dollars in Maine each fall. While the moose hunt alone has never been analyzed by economists, big game hunting, which includes deer, moose, bear and turkey brings $300 million to Maine yearly, Mark Latti, spokesman for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said Wednesday.

And a growing moose safari industry is critical to the Moosehead Lake area.

“It’s how people here eat during the end of spring and the first part of summer,” Jonathan Pratt, director of the Moosehead Lake Region Chamber of Commerce, said. “I can’t tell you how important [moose watching] is. It’s vital.”

Biologists believe that the statewide moose population is actually on a decline. Consequently, many people who make their living from the big animals have advocated for hunting restrictions.

In fact, the number of moose permits has been reduced for the first time in the hunt’s 20-year history in response to the population dip.

In 1999, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife convened a group of hunters, conservationists and biologists, who drafted the state’s current moose management policy. It states that moose herds will be maintained at their current size over the bulk of the state. Populations are to be kept in check with extra hunting permits in eastern Aroostook County and along a strip beginning in southern Penobscot County and running south and west to the New Hampshire border, known as Wildlife Management Districts 3, 6, 11, 15, 16 and 17.

These zones were designed to coincide with the state’s moose-crash hot spots. In fact, a Maine Department of Transportation map of moose crashes between 1999 and 2001 neatly plots routes 1, 1A and 11 in eastern Aroostook County as an area of frequent accidents. Interstate 95 also is clearly visible, particularly north of Bangor, as a significant crash area.

And in southern Maine, crash sites dot all the roadways, not because of an abundance of moose, but because of an abundance of cars. A single moose can be a hazard on the Maine Turnpike on a summer afternoon, Morris said.

Maine’s roads tend to follow the valleys, and unfortunately that’s the habitat that moose prefer during the spring and summer.

Moose come out of the winter craving salt and spend much of the summer drinking from puddles alongside roadways where de-icing salt collects during the spring thaw. As a result, wet years tend to result in higher crash rates. Whether the state’s recent switch from a sand-salt mix to pure salt for de-icing has exacerbated the problem isn’t yet known, Morris said.

Black flies and mosquitoes keep the moose in motion, particularly during the cool early morning and evening hours when they prefer to feed.

“Anything above 60 degrees is hot to a moose,” the state biologist said.

By mid-May, mother moose kick out their yearling calves so they can concentrate on new babies. The yearlings can be even more unpredictable than older moose, Morris said.

“They’re out on their own and doing their own thing, which is wandering around looking lost,” she said.

Most moose-vehicle crashes occur between 7 and 10 p.m., but no time of day is safe.

“I’ve seen them walking down the road at high noon,” Morris said. “You can’t really count on them following any kind of schedule.”

In 1998, the state created an interagency group to look for solutions to the growing crash problem. On average, 750 moose crashes occur per year, but that’s probably a low estimate because it only includes those reported to police, Bobby Van Riper, a biologist with the Maine Department of Transportation, said.

While moose cause 15 percent of vehicle-animal collisions, they’re responsible for half of the cost of all such accidents – at least $50 million between 1999 and 2001 – and the majority of fatalities.

To address the moose nuisance, the state group has researched control methods such as fencing, vegetation management, reduced speed limits, scented repellants and roadway lighting. Minnesota has reduced deer collisions with a sensor system that detects large animals on the roadside and triggers a warning beacon. However, when the DOT looked into installing such a system over a three-eighths of a mile experimental area, the tab came to $89,000, Van Riper said.

With only a few hundred thousand dollars in federal transportation funds, installing a high-tech warning system on Maine’s roads wasn’t possible. Instead, Van Riper has experimented with new signs, as well as road reflectors and wider reflective lines marking the edge of the roadway near Greenville and Rangeley.

If anything crosses that line, you’ll see it, he said.

Eventually, the department will settle on the best technology for Maine.

“It’s like a new car. You don’t want to buy it until you test-drive it,” Van Riper said. “We’re shopping.”

In the meantime, the state has set out to educate drivers about the very real danger of moose collisions. At 50 mph, a typical speed on Maine’s secondary roads, it would take more than 400 feet to bring a car to a stop, according to DOT studies.

Chances are, your headlights will be too low to illuminate the tall animal’s eyes, and if you strike it, most of its 1,000-pound bulk will land on the passenger compartment of your car, the study says.

Studies have never shown that the so-called moose whistles many drivers place on their car antennas do any good. In fact, biologists doubt that moose can even hear the high-frequency noise the devices make.

The only protection is driving slowly and keeping your eyes peeled, Van Riper said.

“Your problem is not the moose standing in the road, it’s the one on the side of the road that you don’t see,” Morris said.

“Treat it like a child on a bicycle,” he advised. “It’s probably going to move, and it’s probably going to move fast.”