US Fish and Wildlife Service photo
The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board voted on April 10 to have 80 either-sex moose hunting permits and 100 antlerless moose hunting permits available this year for a hunt limited to Vermont’s Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) E in the northeastern corner of the state. The science-based hunt is expected to result in a harvest of about 94 moose, or about 10 percent of the current moose population in WMU E.
Permit applications are now available on the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s website.
The goal of the department’s 2024 moose harvest recommendation is to improve the health of moose in WMU-E by reducing the number of moose, thereby reducing the abundance and impact of winter ticks.
“Moose are abundant in WMU E with significantly higher population density than in any other part of the state,” said Nick Fortin, Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s moose project leader. “Moose are the primary host for winter ticks, and higher moose densities support high numbers of winter ticks which negatively impact moose health and survival.”
Lottery applications for moose permits are $10 for residents and $25 for nonresidents. The deadline to apply is June 19. Lottery winners need to purchase resident moose permits for $100 and nonresident moose permits for $350. Lottery winners are also required to hold a current year Vermont hunting or combination hunting and fishing license.
Hunters who held a permit within the past five years are not eligible to apply for a permit or to buy a bonus point. Applicants must continue to annually submit a moose permit application if they wish to retain their past bonus permits and accumulate subsequent bonus points.
Five permits will be available to Vermont military veterans, three permits will be available for “Special Opportunity” recipients with life-threatening illnesses, and three permits will be auctioned in accordance with regulations.
The 2024 Moose Harvest Recommendation and related information about moose research and management are available on Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s website.
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Categories: Outdoors, Press Release
now ,is it really about the moose or is it about the money/// will removing ten percent of the moose population solve the tick problem/// sounds more like a gambling operation/// lottery/// lottery/// lottery///
Kill the moose in order to kill the ticks. Sounds like a picture-perfect government solution.
You really do not understand conservation huh?
>>>“Moose are abundant in WMU E with significantly higher population density than in any other part of the state.
Moose are the primary host for winter ticks, and higher moose densities support high numbers of winter ticks which negatively impact moose health and survival.” <<<
I’ll put in my $10 again this year. I haven’t drawn one in 7 years now so at least my bonus points should be adding up.
They hunted them out, barely see them or sign in areas they used to be prevalent. E is next. How about they figure out the ticks instead of eradicating the moose?
Because that would make far too much sense.
Like me, according to “TJ”, you really do not understand conservation, huh?
For me, it’s more apparent that many posters don’t understand freedom of speech.
The ticks are not the only problem when there too many of one species in a confined habitat. They are a symptom of overcrowding.
Treating the herd for ticks would turn the moose into managed livestock. They are wild animals.
@Kathleen J Gaffney
>>>”For me, it’s more apparent that many posters don’t understand freedom of speech.”<<<
Well, apparently you are one of the posters you speak of because if you understood FOS then you would know I was using mine! Works both ways.🙄
@Phil
@Kathleen J Gaffney…(Winter ticks are DIFFERENT than the ticks humans are most familiar with (black-legged ticks and American dog ticks), which drop off their host after a blood meal and infect multiple hosts over the course of their life cycle. Winter ticks find a host in the fall and spend the winter on the animal before dropping off in the spring – hence the common name, winter tick.)
Reducing winter tick numbers directly, either by treating moose or the landscape with some form of acaricide (a pesticide specifically for ticks) or fungal pathogen (there are some naturally occurring fungi that can kill ticks), is NOT CURRENTLY A VIABLE OPTION. Research in this area is ongoing, but the realities of treating an entire landscape or a sufficient portion of the moose population make it unlikely that this will be a practical option in the near future.
FURTHER, treating ticks does not kill all of them and provides them an opportunity to adapt to the treatment and develop resistance. As long as there is a high density of moose on the landscape, tick numbers will simply increase again when treatments stop or when the ticks become immune to them.
Moose are notoriously poor groomers. As a result, moose can carry far more winter ticks than other potential hosts and, therefore, the DENSITY OF MOOSE on the landscape is the PRIMARY FACTOR affecting winter tick numbers.
Winter tick larvae cannot move more than a few feet, and if they fail to find a host before winter they die. As a result, larval ticks are dependent on a moose (or another host) walking past them. With fewer moose on the landscape, it is less likely that a moose will walk by a waiting cluster of winter tick larvae in the fall. Additionally, since a smaller number of moose will collectively pick up fewer ticks, fewer adult winter ticks will drop off in the spring to lay eggs, and there will be fewer tick larvae seeking a host the following fall.
*****
When those ticks all take a blood meal in late winter, the moose simply cannot replace that volume of blood quick enough. This is compounded by the timing, as the moose’s energy reserves are already depleted by late winter. EVEN IF IF THE MOOSE SURVIVES, they are in poor physical condition. This can AFFECT THE SURVIVAL OF NEWBORN CALVES, which are born about a month after the ticks drop off. Further, because the moose needs to recover from this poor condition, they aren’t able to put as much energy toward growth and building energy reserves. Therefore, they enter the next winter in poorer condition which makes them more vulnerable to the impacts of winter ticks.
Kathleen J Gaffney do a bit of research before exercising your 1st A so quickly!
MORE INFO…
http://vtfishandwildlife.com/hunt/hunting-and-trapping-opportunities/moose/moose-management-faqs
94 moose to be harvested in wmue/// that means that about a thousand moose are in that area based on a ten percent calculation/// i have a camp up in that area and i find this hard to believe/// but, again i may be wrong///
TJ: Or “Chris” or whomever – Whatever these tactics are that you partake in believing such will eventually silence my voice on this and/or all the other platforms wherein I routinely practice my right to free speech is sadly for naught. It hasn’t as of yet and it shall not in the future. What I do see very clearly however is my voice & my opinion on matters pertaining to the environment thoroughly both distresses and threatens you. It is with note that you don’t dare to vocally oppose male posters who disagree with your “professional” opinions on ticks within this thread, but it is merely the verbiage of a lone woman that so sparks your fury and indignation at her refusal to not only provide her viewpoint on this oft tried & failed “conservation” effort, but in her determined refusal to “bow” to your self-proclaimed mastery on ticks and moose when in fact, you and a number of other posters, in defiance of the rules of this website, remain too fainthearted to even post actual names and provide deposition for how your “immensely qualified” opinions should eclipse mine or any of the others who contradict you.
Your personal “expertise” on winter ticks is very apparently nothing more than cutting & pasting information previously authored and proffered on the world wide web and placing it on VDC. You entirely dismiss & ignore the fact that culling 10% of the moose population shall do absolutely nothing to combat the tick invasion that exists across this entire continent – not merely in VT.
Just as with wildlife “management” attempts to “control” mammalian populations by culling numbers within specific species – such as currently encouraged and conducted by VT Fish & Wildlife in attempts to presumably decrease and the coyote population – these theories that you now advocate for in the reduction of tick populations and/or to salvage the number of the remaining moose population simply have been shown to not work. As with your F & W’s faulty methodology in indiscriminately killing off coyotes to reduce population, such methods have been proven to instead have been proven to increase populations whilst simultaneously threatening healthy ecosystems.
As was offered previously, why not allow your theory that culling another 10% of the moose population – adding only to the already approximate 55% detrimental decline in moose numbers that VT experienced in the last decade – and come back onto VDC in the year ahead to announce how effectively this program has invigorated a healthy moose population and eradicated winter tick populations to where the nationwide scourge of ticks & their tick-borne illnesses will no longer remain a persistent pestilence for humans or animals alike.
In conclusion, I invite you as a trapper, which is the likely most genuine cause of these aggrieved posts, to visit http://www.protectourwildlifevt.org in order to glean but a portion of the dissertations provided by the tens of millions of Americans from all walks of life who know that man cannot successfully control or command or ever hold full mastery over the billions of species of flora & fauna that God alone has created for His world.
And just as an aside, first amendment rights require no prerequisites – which extends to you utilizing yours but of course as well. Looks as though Phil utilized his as well in addition to others on this thread & past. And in the end, NONE of these comments, regardless of lengths, will ultimately alter what will inevitably come insofar as any potentially recovering moose population, the nationwide tick scourge, or the progression of any legislative changes in Montpelier now or in the future.
Apologies for typos & grammatical errors as I try to limit no more than 2 or minutes of time per post under any thread & never edit, which often results in such errors.
Posts like this, filled with vitriol and personal attacks are exactly why I don’t use my full name, and I’m starting to doubt that you’re actually using yours.
1) My name is not “Chris.” You stated >>>”you and a number of other posters, in defiance of the rules of this website, remain too fainthearted to even post actual names”<<<
Wrong. "Real names preferred." When I signed up I used the initials of MY NAME which was accepted since it is fact. The new "rule" added is…"All commenters registered AFTER JANUARY 1 2024 must use their true names."
Again, TJ is my true name initials. However, to appease you as well as let you realize that you bashing a "male" was weird since my name is Tammy and I too am female such as yourself.
2) Why are you so upset at my very first response to your comment? It wasn't that serious to start and could've ended at that. You chose to continue so I gave info.
3) Yes, I did copy & pasted a couple of things as well as added at the end of my comment the website in which I got the information.
4) I am good friends with a 35 year conservationist though if you'd like to reach out to him.
5) I see your comments on many other articles and actually agree with your comments many times! Take a chill pill lady, I'm in no way "trying to silence you."🙄
And here is an interesting strategy as an alternative to combatting winter tick disease: “Small Fungus Formulations” as presented to UVM a couple of years ago & as studied and supported by Dr. Margaret Skinner, research professor at UVM’s Agriculture & Life Sciences…..presumably an actual expert in wildlife control methods and varying diseases that impact the environment.
Apparently, the US Fish & Wildlife Department also, as of last year in any case, supports such a possibility. Yet are we to believe that Vermont will simply continue to encourage the killing of an already diminished moose herd in order to kill more ticks – purportedly because such a strategy creates “more distance” between moose in their habitat? It doesn’t work, because it has not worked. Moose populations have decreased (for a number of reasons of which ticks are but one, & which are not existent right in neighboring NYS) over the past decade or so from anywhere between 45% to 57% and winter ticks have become more prevalent.
Moose populations in northern NYS though, right next door, remain largely healthy & flourishing. Has VT F & W ever endeavored to begin to research why, and how understanding why might lead to actually developing and implementing real intervention and remedy?
Vermont’s strategy to virtually every wildlife/environmental challenge is to increase hunting. I’m thinking this isn’t about healthy ecosystems at all.
S.Lowry – The “vitriol” you profess are simply my rightful replies, yet again backed up by the references I have cited, to yet another nameless, faceless poster who initiated the interaction with me – I did not initiate any discourse with him.
And as far as my having the tenacity to utilize my full name? Seven years on the Pownal Planning Commission, 2-decades-long year history as a guest editorialist at the now termed “New England Newspapers”, and former NY metro area videographer – try a public search. Others can continue, again against the rules for site posting, to remain anonymous, for they have no courage of their convictions.
Bigot keeps talking.
Often wrong…. But never in doubt.
Covers her disgusting ignorance with insult.
Sad
The men who founded this country did so with both conviction, and pseudonyms. I can’t imagine any good reason why you keep harping on the issue, with shaming and belittling language, except that like any good leftist these days, you’d take the opportunity to cause real-world problems for those who disagree with you.
Please pre-post my “shaming & belittling” language herein and thereafter, please cease and desist from further harassing me on VDC as doing so has yet, and never shall, result in your silencing me but only serves to have me staunchly reiterate the opinions I have an abject right to hold regardless of whether you appreciate them or not.
And as to the men and women who have helped to found, protect, & serve within our Constitutional Republic over the course of its existence did so so that my rights would be preserved for the duration of this Republic, not so that anonymous online provocateurs can try to silence them.
My opinions here remain as written as does anyone else’s, presumably.
Please also, prior to ceasing & desisting from harassing me online, explain how my posting pertaining to alternatives to winter tick disease as presented to the PHD I so referenced at UVM – presents “real-world problems” to other posters who remain unidentifiable behind the cloak of convenient, yet cowardly, anonymity.
Increasing moose hunting permits has no effect on the devastating effects of winter tick disease proven by past attempts at this failed methodology and confirmed by professionals who possess doctoral degrees employed at the UVM and bolstered by the those currently employed by the US Fish & Wildlife Services.