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Maine's First Controlled Moose Hunt Aims to Protect Crops and Make Roads Safer

September 08, 2009 - Again this weekend, just as he did last weekend and the weekend before that, young Torin O'Connell eschewed his commitments to high school and athletics and hopped in a creaky old truck.

That truck bobbed, weaved and rattled its way several hours north, until Interstate 95 plumb ran out at its end. The truck continued ambling along to the village of Eagle Lake, where the 14-year-old O'Connell would set up shop to become one of 100 people to participate in the state's first controlled moose hunt.

In an effort to battle an overly-abundant moose population in and around northern Maine's broccoli and cauliflower farms, the state issued 100 permits – 55 to landowners in the area meeting certain criteria and another 45 spread among 15 different registered hunting guides chosen in a permit lottery – for a special hunt.

That hunt began on Aug. 16 and runs for five weeks through the middle of this month.

"It's just a great opportunity in the state of Maine," said Nathan Theriault of OMM Outfitters in Eagle Lake. "It's a great opportunity to take a moose that's not during the recreational season."

And while it's an opportunity for hunters, it's also an opportunity for the state to control a moose population in nine towns in the state's northern reaches that have seen broccoli and cauliflower fields decimated by damage caused by the large animals. It's also a chance to help curb the growing problem of automobile collisions with moose on a dangerous stretch of Route 1 that cuts through the area.

The permits were issued for two large farms – Emerald Valley Farm in Caribou and Smith's Farm in Presque Isle. Together, they encompass some 6,000 acres.

"It is not a recreational hunt," said Richard Hoppe, a wildlife biologist with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in Ashland. "This is something we have as a tool."

A tool, Hoppe hopes, that will serve the area well. Early last week, 30 of the moose permit tags had been filled. Of those 30, just eight were bulls.

"It really doesn't surprise me," said Hoppe, adding that it is too soon to tell if this will be a one-time hunt or will continue in future years. "The objective was that we really wanted the females to be targeted."

Like management of any species, cutting down the number of females in the population decreases that species' ability to reproduce quickly – thus controlling the overall numbers.

Landowner permits were issued to anybody owning 80 or more acres who applied, and those permits were for any moose, either a bull or a cow. In the guides' lottery, each winner received three permits – for two cows and one bull.

Almost all of the first 30 moose taken, Hoppe said, were from guides leading clients on trips.

Which is something that had Theriault worried.

"This is a great opportunity to bring in unseen revenue," Theriault said of the first-time, off-season moose hunt. "It also gives (guides) the ability to help out farmers and alleviate some of the pressure off the broccoli fields.

"But one of the biggest issues is that landowners want to go out and get a big bull. The landowners got any-moose permits, while the guides got two cow permits – but it's very hard for a guide to sell a cow hunt."

Which, in fact, is how Torin O'Connell got his moose permit. Family friend and guide Brian Donaghy of Oakland, a guide with OMM Outfitters, gave O'Connell one of the two cow permits he was issued.

What they've found is that the hunting is not easy.

"There are a lot of restrictions on what they can do and where they can hunt," said Shelly O'Connell, Torin's mother and a lifelong outdoorswoman. "It's hard. The first couple of days they were up there, they saw 11 (moose) – but most of them were on land they can't hunt on."

Because the mating season for moose – the rut – doesn't typically begin until mid-September at the earliest, this is strictly "stalk and shoot" hunting. Bulls aren't yet responding to calling, making hunters use tactics other than what they would use during the recreational hunt.

"I don't think it's going to be what everyone was proposing. I don't think it's going to be a slaughter of big bulls," Hoppe said. "I think (hunters) did not realize the difficulty this would have. They thought, 'I'm going to be placed in a field, wait there, and bang!' No. This is hunting.

"I would think anyone that's going to be hunting on broccoli and caulilfower fields would be two hours in morning and two hours in evening and that's the hunt... The moose have a heavy coat on, and during the day when it's hot, they're going to be in water, down in vegetation. They don't want to be out in the sun having that heat radiating down on them.

"It's pretty warm. It started in August, and the first week up here was 87, 88 degrees. Anyone in their right mind is going to think this isn't going to be a great week for hunting."

But what people are holding onto are stories of a single bull chasing as many as a dozen cows around a broccoli field – hopelessly trying to mate while feasting on sweet, tender broccoli and cauliflower – or the 61 moose that were shot on Smith's Farm land during last season's recreational hunt alone.

Legally, farmers have the right to shoot any moose – cow or bull – that is destroying crops. But given the size of the farms and the man-hours that would be required to effectively control the population, the state called on guides to help.

"Guides obviously want to make money," Theriault said. "And with animal management, you want to take that mature animal out of the herd. This is one way to do that."

By TRAVIS BARRETT, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, 9/6/09


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