Amid concerns over the health of Maine’s moose population, a new study is aiming to learn more about the impact of ticks and the diseases they’re bringing north.
For centuries, the moose has been a source of sustenance for people in Maine, and today, the forest ungulate is both an icon of Maine and key part of the state’s hunting tourism.
But all is not well with the Maine moose. While the state’s moose population is estimated at some 76,000 by the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, there are major concerns about the vitality of moose herds and the increasing prevalence of winter ticks, parasites that feed off the animal’s blood over the winter. Moose hunting permits have been cut in half in the last three years, to 2,140 in 2016, because of the impact of ticks on the population, and the DIF&W indicates that moose are having fewer calves.
In New Hampshire, retired state wildlife biologist Eric Orff argues that moose could be gone from the Granite State within 20 years. Over the last 15 years, according to Orff, New Hampshire’s moose population has declined from an estimated 7,500 to about 3,500 today because of warmer winters and increasing ticks.
The Maine wildlife department is involved in a range of research on moose health, including a project with the University of New Hampshire that is tracking collared moose and tick impacts at three different latitudes, in northern New Hampshire, western Maine and northern Aroostook County.
Adding to that research is a new collaborative study involving the Aroostook Band of Micmacs and youth tribal members, University of Maine at Presque Isle wildlife biology professor Jason Johnston and the Maine Medical Center Research Institute.
With funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the collaborative project is in the midst of a multi-part study analyzing tick and blood samples taken from moose and deer harvested by hunters. The study includes testing moose for Lyme disease.
“Nobody else has really done this. It’s brand new research in some cases,” said Dena Winslow, tribal planner with the Band of Micmacs.
Seven tribal youth are assisting the research as paid interns, aiding with sample collection at game tagging stations and in another component of the study collecting tick samples from woodland areas, among other things. In early October, Winslow led a crew of interns to Ashland where along with wildlife department officials they took blood and tick samples at the tagging station.
The ticks collected at the stations are sent to the Maine Medical Center Research Institute lab. The veterinary company Idexx Laboratories also has donated screening kits to test moose blood for exposure to Lyme disease, and any moose that test positive will have tissue samples taken and sent to Idexx for further study.
The project will last a year, and the results will be shared with the partners and possibly published at the end of the process, Winslow said.