Fish & Wildlife Department proposes 180 moose hunting permits for Northeast Kingdom

The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department has proposed repeating the Northeast Kingdom’s annual moose hunt in October as part of its ongoing efforts to prevent the spread of winter ticks and stabilize the state’s moose population.

At a Wednesday meeting, the Fish and Wildlife Board gave preliminary approval to a proposed 180 moose permits for the state wildlife management unit which comprises Essex County — where Vermont’s moose population is most dense.

The board will take public comment on the proposal over the next six weeks before holding a final vote on the permit number in April. It approved the same number of permits for last year’s hunt.

The aim of the annual moose harvest is to ultimately bring the area’s moose population down to one moose per square mile.

“Our goal is to reduce the number of moose in that part of the state, and that, we believe, is going to reduce the incidence of winter ticks,” said Nick Fortin, the department’s moose project leader. “The idea is that we’ll have slightly fewer but ultimately much healthier moose which is going to benefit us in the long term.”

According to the Fish & Wildlife Department’s recommendations for this year , the density of the moose population in the southern half of Essex County is currently around 1.56 moose per square mile, while the population in the northern half of the county sits at 1.29 moose per square mile.

With final approval, the state would issue 80 either-sex moose hunting permits and 100 antlerless moose permits in the designated region for the moose seasons this October.

Those permits are expected to yield a harvest of 94 moose, or about 10% of the region’s population, according to the department’s recommendations.

The department first began to ramp up permitting for moose hunting in 2020, following the completion of a three-year study in which the department monitored 126 moose — 36 adults and 90 calves — in the Essex County area.

During the winters of 2017 and 2018, nearly half of the monitored calves died, and the department attributed nearly three-quarters of deaths in the study’s population to winter ticks.

The state’s strategy, however, has its detractors.

“It seems like the department isn’t looking at the issue holistically,” said Brenna Galdenzi, president of the Vermont wildlife advocacy group Protect Our Wildlife.

Galdenzi said that climate change, not overpopulation, has driven the increase in winter ticks. She argued that culling the moose population has little bearing on the root cause of the issue.

“Killing moose to kill ticks?” Galdenzi said. “I’d have to urge the department to do better than that.”

Members of the public can submit comments on the proposed moose season regulations by email before March 31.

Archery season for moose takes place during the first week of October, and the regular season begins on Oct. 19 and lasts six days.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Fish & Wildlife Department proposes 180 moose hunting permits for Northeast Kingdom .