Moose herd size dominates sports congress Wildlife habitat also discussed

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For eight rapid-fire minutes, Vaughn Anthony stood at a lectern on Friday and told the assembled outdoor decision-makers exactly what he thinks of the state’s moose hunt … and what he thinks needs to be done.

Anthony didn’t look at notes.

He rarely paused.

And what he had to say will likely surprise you.

Maine has a lot of moose. More than you thought. Perhaps as many as 60,000.

And we ought to be shooting a lot more of them.

“We have been harvesting less than 3,000 moose, and if we want to be doing something about this, we should be harvesting three to four times as many moose as we are now,” Anthony said. “I’m a scientist, so I’m not worried about the politics or the logistics of the situation.”

Anthony said harvesting 12,000 to 15,000 moose a year could be done, should the state decide to live up to its own stated management goals for the animals.

Anthony said that previous population estimates have been shown to be inaccurate, and he asserted that in some parts of the state, the moose herd is so large, it has reached or nearly reached its carrying capacity.

If your garden-variety hunter offered up such a controversial idea, you might be excused for scoffing.

Anthony is not a garden-variety hunter. He’s a trained scientist with a Ph.D and is now retired after a career with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

And many of the 75 or so folks who attended Friday’s Sportsman’s Congress, which was organized by the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and held in Augusta, took note.

“Vaughn for president,” SAM executive director George Smith said at the end of Anthony’s presentation, to a few chuckles and even more applause.

Ken Elowe, the director of resource management for the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, said there are plenty of questions about Maine’s moose herd, and the state’s management of it.

“Do we have 60,000 [moose]? That’s an excellent question. As most of you know, it’s not like counting cows in a pasture,” Elowe said, explaining that there’s a lot of ongoing debate about the matter taking place within a current state working group.

Included in that debate, Elowe said, are asking how many moose the state has, how many it should have, and how many it should allow to be shot while maintaining the state’s high-quality moose hunt.

Elowe pointed out that during hearings to consider the DIF&W’s recent proposal to modestly increase the number of moose permits available, few people stepped forward to offer support.

“The public didn’t support it, and we actually yesterday passed through our advisory council [an amended proposal calling for] moose permits equal to last year,” Elowe said.

While courteous to Anthony, Elowe also said there are significant differences between management methods for terrestrial animals like moose and the marine animals that Anthony has spent years studying.

Last year a total of 2,880 moose permits were allotted for the two-week, split-season hunt.

Drastically increasing the number of permits would provide a financial boon for the state, some pointed out.

Waiting for conclusive data and not making science-based changes, at least in selected Wildlife Management Districts in order to gather more information, can lead to “decision paralysis,” one observer said.

“Lack of data sometimes becomes a circular loop. Because we don’t have the data, we can’t make decisions, let’s not take the chance on it,” said Gerry Lavigne, formerly the DIF&W’s head deer biologist who now works on a variety of projects for SAM. “The problem with that type of philosophy is that yes, we may have an 80 percent [hunting] success rate [for moose], but over the last 25 years we may have squandered thousands and thousands of potential moose permits because of conservative harvest.”

Lavigne explained that he was assigned the task of coming up with the moose herd assessment that led to the original modern moose hunt in the 1980s, which he agreed was an inexact science.

“We were 90 percent certain that we had between 4,000 and 36,000 moose,” he said, eliciting widespread laughter. “The precision of that estimate has not improved since then, and it’s been a real Achilles’ heel to the department.”

This year was the 13th for SAM’s Sportsman’s Congress, and it marked a departure from past events.

This time, SAM opted to limit the agenda to wildlife and land-access issues and has planned a subsequent Angling Congress that will be staged in February. The Sportsman’s Congress is a gathering of legislators, guides, media members and decision makers, and panel discussions typically highlight the issues SAM expects to dominate the year ahead.

The streamlined format worked well, with plenty of interesting discussion on a variety of topics.

Here are few notable sound bites, culled from the five-hour session:

. “I know my goose is cooked. I’m never going to see the kind of hunting I grew up with in northern Maine. And unfortunately, neither will my kids.” That’s what Steven Michaud, a hunter from Topsham, said, while explaining that failing to take serious action to improve deer habitat and reduce predators has been costly to generations of young hunters.

. “It’s also hard as a landowner to say, ‘I shouldn’t cut my trees,’ but then [to] watch the coyotes eat all the deer,'” said Jim Robbins, describing the benefits of cooperative efforts – rather than more rigid regulations – for landowners when it comes to preserving prime deer habitat.

. “We’re all starting to realize that not only is it unfair, but it also has a negative impact on economics,” said George Smith of SAM, explaining his view that the state’s Mainer-only opening day of deer season should be abolished. By a show of hands, the crowd overwhelmingly agreed with Smith’s assessment, as well as his proposal that deer season be moved a week later in the year.

. “It will be a bloodbath. We will be kicking a hornet’s nest if we talk about expanding to a spring bear hunt,” said Rep. Thomas Watson of Bath, speaking about a task force proposal to decrease the number of bears by some to-be-determined method, in order to cut down on predation of deer.

. “Inaction means loss of access,” said Tom Doak, representing the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine. Doak was talking about the necessity of learning from the experiences of others in areas outside of Maine.

. “In places where that agency becomes part of a super-agency, sportsmen are the losers,” said Smith, talking about the proposal to wrap the DIF&W into a larger entity that would include other natural resource-based state agencies.

. “The only requirement for operating a 35-foot boat on Sebago Lake, at top speed, is a checkbook,” said Watson, explaining the rationale for a bill he has introduced, calling for mandatory boating education that would be phased in beginning in 2011.

jholyoke@bangordailynews.net

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