MADAWASKA – A state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife hearing on moose-related collisions will be held at the Madawaska Safety Complex at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 15.

IF&W Commissioner Roland D. Martin, as well as department biologists Gene Dumont, Sandy Ritchie and Richard Hoppe, will participate.

Robert Van Riper, an environmental biologist with the state Department of Transportation, and Sgt. Hugh Turner of the Maine State Police also will participate. Rep. Rosaire Paradis, D-Frenchville, said a petition pressing for the state to address the moose-car collision issue will be presented to the state officials by Jan Cyr of Madawaska. Two of Cyr’s friends were killed in moose-car collisions two months ago.The session will be the third meeting on the issue since the deaths of Eugene Levesque and Norman Thibodeau, both Madawaska residents.

From 1999 to 2001, Maine had nearly 15,000 animal crashes. Of those, 82 percent involved deer and 14 percent involved moose.