Lee Kantar, a moose biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife,\u00a0will lead an effort to count winter ticks on dead moose, information that could help moose management by estimating how many calves might die over the winter. Scientists consider the state\u2019s herd of around 70,000 healthy for now, but Kantar is worried about not enough calves surviving in the future.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/DSCN8143-600x450.jpg\")
State moose biologist Lee Kantar (center) checks for winter ticks on a live, captured 8-month-old moose. Credit: Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife<\/p>\n
Biologists\u00a0also are looking at thinning the moose population, with the help of hunters, to decrease the number of winter ticks. October will be the final year of a study known as the adaptive moose hunt<\/a>\u00a0that allows more permits \u2014 550 \u2014 in half of one remote hunting zone.<\/p>\n It could be tough to convince some people that to save a moose, you need to kill more of them to deprive the ticks of their food source, according to Benjamin Simpson, the Penobscot Nation\u2019s big game biologist. The sad part about the state not offering more permits earlier is that moose died from the ticks anyway, Lee Schanz Jr., owner of Schanz\u2019s Guide Service in Cornville, said.<\/p>\n Maine has the largest moose population in the lower 48 states. They are the biggest game to hunt in the state, making them a sought-after but carefully regulated centerpiece of the sporting culture here. Hunting-related purchases contributed another $938 million and supported 7,760 jobs last year, according to a 2024 report from the Sportsmen\u2019s Alliance<\/a>.<\/p>\n Unlike other types of ticks that move among different animals and people, winter ticks stay on a moose for their entire life. They attach to the moose in the fall and suck blood through the entire winter. They morph into an adult in March, which is when they suck the most blood from the moose. Early spring also is when there is little food around for the moose, which also must fend off predators including black bears and coyotes. <\/p>\n Some 30,000 to 90,000 ticks can be on a moose at one time, Kantar said, instead of only a few. Winter ticks are no danger to humans. The blood-engorged ticks look like a whole bunch of black grapes all over the moose, Chip Woodman, owner of Northeast Wilderness Outfitters in Monmouth, said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see it, it\u2019s not something that you really forget,\u201d said Byron Charles, co-owner of Spaulding Lake Outfitters in Oxbow, of sickly and dead moose in the spring.<\/p>\n Moose aren\u2019t good groomers, Kantar said, so they rub up against trees to try to dislodge the winter ticks, also eroding their fur and leaving bare patches. Calves are more prone to die, because they weigh about 400 pounds in the spring, less than half of the adults, and can\u2019t withstand the blood loss, he said.<\/p>\n The winter ticks tend to congregate in the neck and shoulder areas, in the armpits, groin, anus and ears, he said. It\u2019s common in the spring to see animals with globs of ticks on them and bald spots. Calves may also die from exposure due to the hair loss. Moose hair is hollow inside and holds body heat. <\/p>\n Winter ticks are difficult to kill, although a winter freeze will destroy them. But to their benefit, winter temperatures have warmed 5 degrees compared with a century ago and it is the fastest-warming season, according to the Maine Climate Council\u2019s 2024 update<\/a>\u00a0on the effects of climate change in Maine. Temperatures could rise another 2 to 10 degrees by the end of the century, depending on greenhouse gases. A shift of 2 degrees is enough to change the season by a week or more, said Sean Birkel, Maine state climatologist. The extra warmth and humidity of an extended fall could support more tick growth.<\/p>\n \u201cA question I get a lot from people is, \u2018will this winter be cold enough to kill the ticks?’\u201d said Susan Elias, a tick expert at the MaineHealth Institute for Research in Scarborough. \u201cThe answer is almost always, \u2018No.’\u201d<\/p>\n Kantar of Maine\u2019s inland fisheries department is studying various aspects of the winter ticks to see under what conditions they survive and to help predict how many calves might die over the winter. They make the prediction by counting the number of ticks along 4-inch cuts made across the neck, shoulders, ribs and rump of each moose, then use a formula to predict calve deaths.<\/p>\n High tick counts in 2021 foretold an explosion of deaths the following spring of 2022, when Kantar found that almost 90 percent of the moose calves he had tracked using GPS collars did not survive their first year of life. The tick population was unusually high that winter as temperatures rose up to 2.5 degrees above average, according to the National Weather Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kantar said there were a few extreme events in the early 2000s in which more overwintering calves than usual were lost, but the numbers have ramped up since then. The death count can vary a lot, but more years than not he is seeing greater than a 50 percent loss of overwintering calves.<\/p>\n The state wildlife department is looking at other ways to study the winter tick to understand its patterns. One potential way is to have foresters cut trees to guide moose away from dense tick areas, Kantar said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat could inform us down the road so we can make recommendations to forest managers as to whether that could minimize the number of times that moose are coming into contact with ticks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Lori Valigra reports on the environment for the BDN\u2019s Maine Focus investigative team. Reach her at lvaligra@bangordailynews.com. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation, a fund at the Maine Community Foundation and donations by BDN readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brandon Bishop remembers vividly the first time he saw a dead moose infested with thousands of ticks. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3722,3723,3724,159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-2776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-enterprise","9":"tag-free","10":"tag-new-perspective","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114722231040267417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/download-3-600x400.jpg\")
Scores of winter ticks are still attached to the dead moose, grotesquely engorged to the size of large raisins. Unlike deer and dog ticks, winter ticks hunt in packs. Their larvae gather in interlocking clumps on vegetation. And when one tick snags a passing moose or deer, hundreds or even a few thousand come along for the ride. Credit: Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/winter-tick-transect-600x800.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
Scientists at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife conduct a count of winter ticks along lines they made on four parts of a moose: neck, shoulders, ribs and rump. The total count helps them determine winter tick abundance and predict how many moose calves may die over the winter. Credit: Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_0331-600x800.jpg\")
Scientists examine winter ticks on a moose that has died. Credit: Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife<\/p>\n