The moose hunting season this October coincided with a heat wave, when temperatures in the Northeast Kingdom hit the 60s and 70s for almost a week, with no rain.
鈥淵ou really couldn鈥檛 make worse moose hunting conditions,鈥� said Nick Fortin, the state鈥檚 head moose and deer biologist.
Moose aren鈥檛 active during the day when it鈥檚 hot. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e basically hunkered down somewhere trying to stay cool, because they have their full winter coat on already,鈥� Fortin said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e just not moving.鈥�
And dry conditions with freshly fallen leaves mean that hunters can鈥檛 move through the woods quietly, without being noticed.
Fortin thinks the warm, dry weather was a big reason this year鈥檚 moose hunt had a lower success rate than in years past 鈥� with 62 moose taken, out of 180 permits granted by the state.
Despite that, he鈥檚 hopeful the state's moose population is slightly healthier than in recent decades, as winter ticks and brain parasites have driven declining birth rates and calf mortality. That's based on the body weights and reproductive rates he鈥檚 seen from harvested moose over the past few years.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trending in the right direction,鈥� he said.
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Biologists can estimate the birth rate of a population by looking at scars on the ovaries of moose, from where they released an egg.
For the past three years, the average birth rate of harvested female moose has been slightly above 1, which hadn鈥檛 been the case since the early 2000s.
And harvested moose have weighed more, on average, over the past few years.
Fortin still wouldn't consider the moose population in Vermont "super healthy," he said.
鈥淏ut the sky is not falling, like we were concerned about five years ago.鈥�
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