AUGUSTA – The moose hunt is coming to southern Maine.

The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department’s Advisory Council on Thursday approved an experimental hunt featuring a limited number of permits for two seasons, starting in the fall of next year.

Department officials will review the results to decide whether the practice should continue.

The proposal was discussed at seven public meetings and three public hearings held around the state over the past two years. Mark Stadler, director of the department’s wildlife division, says there was little to no opposition.

Council Chairman Bob Savage of Limington said the fact that the hunt is experimental is one reason the council approved it.

“The biologists take their best guess on what the results will be, but until you have on-the-ground circumstances and it actually happens, people don’t know,” Savage said. “I think the population can sustain a hunt of this size, and I think it will help with (minimizing) moose-vehicle collisions.”

The Maine Legislature told the department two years ago to report on the viability of a southern Maine moose hunt. This past winter, the Legislature directed the department’s Advisory Council to decide.

The department went out of its way to get public views because officials recognized the idea could be a controversial one, Stadler said.

“I can’t think of any time we provided so much opportunity for the public to be involved on an issue,” he said. “We knew this could potentially be a controversial issue, or that people may want to express ideas or concerns.”

The hunt will allow 135 hunters in the zone during the November deer season starting in 2008. It stretches from Parsonsfield to Sebago, east to Winthrop, and along a stretch of coast from Belfast to Brooklin.