AUGUSTA – Hunters in the industrial forests north of Greenville will gain an additional week of moose hunting next fall, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Council voted Thursday.

A handful of local lodge owners had complained that a second week of hunting could detract from their foliage and wildlife watching tourism business, testifying at an October public hearing that moose are worth more alive than dead.

But with just a handful attending the hearing, opposition was nothing compared to the uproar three years ago when the state first established a two-week moose hunt in an effort to reduce crowding and boost hunter safety in the busiest far northern and eastern Maine wildlife management districts.

The split season in those areas has had no impact on the number of moose killed, said department spokesman Mark Latti. But hunters told the department in annual surveys that they have had a better experience since the change because they have been less likely to come across other hunters.

However, the season in management district four, located north of the Golden Road, was not changed three years ago. This left the more than 250 hunters assigned to that area packed in at a density of 1.3 per 10 square-miles – among the highest in the state – during a single week of hunting in October.

The council responded Thursday by unanimously voting to divide those hunters among a September week and an October week in 2005.

While the length of the hunt in the district was doubled, the number of hunters allowed was left the same, with the intention of improving safety while providing a longer season for the businesses that depend on moose, according to DIF&W.Greenville area hunting guides had argued that the lack of the September hunt, right in the middle of the moose’s breeding season (when the biggest animals can be attracted with moose calls), had put them at a disadvantage to the point where guided moose hunts were no longer profitable. Thursday, after learning of the vote, Dan Legere of the Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville, said that he plans to guide again in 2005.

“It will put us back in the moose hunting game,” Legere said. “We can be pretty confident that we’ll have success calling a nice big bull.”

In other business:

. Wildlife biologist Mark Stadler announced that preliminary counts indicate 2,317 moose were killed in 2004. The figure, which is about the same as in recent years, represents an 80 percent average hunter success rate statewide.

. As the state recovers from a close vote on the bear hunting referendum, DIF&W needs to play a larger role in educating the public – particularly in Southern Maine – about how it manages wildlife, Commissioner Roland “Dan” Martin said. The department already is targeting a majority of its public relations funds on an ad campaign on Portland-area television stations. And with whatever funds are available in the coming year, similar educational efforts, perhaps in cooperation with hunting and fishing groups, will continue, he said.

“Those of us around this table know that we base our decisions on science, but not everyone in the public thinks that it’s so,” said councilor Tenley Meara of Topsham.

. DIF&W doesn’t plan to introduce a great deal of legislation during the first session of the 122nd Legislature, which will begin its work in January. Looming battles over state budgets and tax reform will take precedence, Martin said. With 7 of the 13 members of the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife guaranteed to be new when members are appointed later this month, department officials plan to hold off on legislation that can be delayed until next year when the committee is more established.