Maine’s experimental moose hunt to reduce winter ticks shows some serious promise.

If you’re still with us, that means you’ve made it to the middle of yet another week and hopefully you’ve recovered from the fantastic long weekend.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get another mid-week dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about so far this week:

• Hunting helps - A special hunting program in Maine is going the distance for moose populations 🫎

• Leave them be - It’s now illegal to rehab fawns in the Volunteer State 🟧

• We’ve got too many deer - And not enough hunters in Michigan 😑

• Hunting…owls?- Yes, the USFWS is kicking around the idea in the PNW 🦉

• Hunting bans on the ballot - A Colorado special interest group is enforcing their will on us again…🐈

• Surf’s up - The Mexican deer that caught a wave to avoid a hungry pack of feral dogs 🏄

WAIT…HUNTING IS HELPING?
MAINE’S EXPERIMENTAL MOOSE HUNT TO REDUCE WINTER TICKS SHOWS SERIOUS PROMISE

When it comes to Maine and moose, there is perhaps nothing more synonymous with the pair than the mention of brain ticks. Having plagued moose populations for decades, biologists have been working tirelessly to help reduce the effects of brain ticks and bring back moose populations to historic levels. 

One such effort was an experimental moose hunt that was introduced four years ago aimed at deliberately using moose hunting permits to drastically reduce moose densities while (hopefully) simultaneously reducing winter tick populations. As populations have been suffering since the 1990s, biologists were desperate for a solution after the winter of 2021 resulted in the death of 87 percent of collared calves due to tick infestations.

Known as the Adaptive Unit moose hunt in Wildlife Management District 4, the experimental hunt is actually more of a cull. With a large number of available tags, the idea was to make a noticeable dent in the moose population and more importantly, density in one particular area. 

Now four years down the road, biologists finally seem to have the data to back up their original hypothesis…

💔 Tennessee makes it illegal to rehabilitate deer amid fears of CWD spread. Some things shouldn’t need to be said, but each year we find countless stories of folks f**king with deer fawns when they really shouldn’t be. With more and more people out and about, coming across a hiding fawn has become more of a common occurrence and, for whatever reason, some people feel inclined to pick them up.

Now I’m all about helping out an animal in need, but the truth is 90 percent of these pick-ups are heart-felt attempts to ‘rehabilitate’ a ‘lost’ or ‘starving’ fawn - both statements that often end up being far from the truth. With DNRs across the country reminding the public to leave fawns on the ground, Tennessee has gone a touch further as it continues to fight off CWD. Given that fawns are often picked up and transported across county or, in some cases, state lines, Tennessee has simply gone ahead and banned the transportation of live fawns to mitigate the risk. Following in the footsteps of states like Texas, it’s now illegal to transport any live deer. Officials are reminding the public to report fawns that are visibly injured, and if a fawn isn’t visibly injured, to simply not touch it.

🤷 With an estimated two million deer, Michigan is officially over-populated and is unsure how to handle the excess. There are good problems to have and there are bad problems to have and Michigan is unsure just which one it has at the moment. After failing to get enough hunters in the woods last fall, officials in the Great Lake State are scrambling to institute new hunting regulations they hope will help put a dent in numbers. 

The proposals reportedly include addressing the ability to use drones to help aid in deer recovery, expand early and late antlerless seasons to public land and expand the Hunter Access Program to provide more hunting opportunities. The DNR is set to vote on the proposed changes to hunting regulations later this week.

🦉If you’re into hunting owls, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a hunt for you ! Yes, while we all tend to lean towards upland birds and fowl, the USFWS is looking to create some excitement around the possibility of hunting barred owls in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, as part of an initiative to help save spotted owls, the USFWS is in the final stages of a proposal that would see 500,000 barred owls killed over the next 30-or-so years. 

While declines in spotted owl populations in Oregon and California were definitely affected by old-growth logging practices, forest protection measures put in place in the 90s managed to help populations rebound. But since then, spotted owls have once again seen overall declines and research is pointing to their distant cousin, the barred owl, as the culprit. As two species that compete for both habitat and reliable food sources, the barred owl is seemingly coming out victorious and leaving waning populations of spotted owls in their wake. 

Some conservation groups see the USFWS’s proposed culling plan as a necessary, last-ditch effort to save the spotted owls. The USFWS is expected to announce their final decision within the next 30 days.

CONTROVERSY // ^{_{THIS WEEK’S SH*T DISTURBER}}

😿 Mountain lion ban will most likely be on the ballot for Colorado voters this fall. An animal rights group by the name of Cats Aren’t Trophies (clever, right?) has managed to rack up 188,000 signatures on a petition in favor of banning what they call the ‘trophy hunting’ of wild cats such as mountain lions and bobcats in Colorado. At this point, the Secretary of State has 30 days to verify that a minimum of 124,328 of those signatures belong to valid voters (5 percent of the 2.4 million residents who voted in the 2020 election) were obtained. 

If the signature test passes, the potential ban, referred to as Initiative 91, will become a ballot measure this November. In what is shaping up to be another push from special interest groups to revoke wildlife management decisions from state biologists, it’s something that we as hunters and anglers ought to pay attention to. With nearly 4,000 lions roaming free in Colorado (not including kittens), the science speaks for itself. With less than a 20 percent hunter success rate, last year hunters in Colorado took only 502 cats - around 12 percent of the population. Nobody cares more about these animals than we do and the way this hunter sees it, in the great state of Colorado, there’s still plenty of cats to go around.  

VIDEO // ^{_{SOME THINGS JUST HAVE TO BE SEEN}}

🌊 A Mexican deer catches a gnarly wave while trying to escape a pack of feral dogs. You’ve heard of them jumping over ungodly high fences or leaping off of cliffs, but have you seen one take off into the surf and ride a wave to shore? You have now…

🐝 How bad do you want it? Watch as a black bear endures hundreds of stings to get to his honey.  I love honey, but not this much. This bear definitely knew the pain was worth that sweet, sweet pleasure.

CAMP TALK // ^{_{BEFORE YOU GO}}

We get a lot of questions and comments on here, and we figure it’s time to repay the favor. As part of our new Camp Talk section, we’re going to ask you, the reader, your opinion on some serious (and not so serious) topics to close out each newsletter.

On Friday I asked, What’s your favorite section of the newsletter?

To which you (thankfully) responded:

1. I love the whole damn thing 💪

2. Featured stories

Here’s today’s question…

Oh, and one more thing…