3/7/2024 0 Comments Tick identification chart nhBut in the vast commercial forests up north, massive clearcutting decades ago combined with regular harvesting since has created prime moose habitat. Areas of southern New Hampshire and Maine have fewer winter ticks because development limits moose populations. “Core moose habitat in New Hampshire is the White Mountains and north, and winter ticks are still the largest factor influencing that population,” said Henry Jones, the lead moose biologist with New Hampshire’s Fish & Game Department. “The winters have shortened and the falls are longer, which means longer time for those ticks to quest and actively seek their host, which means (moose) have accumulated much more on them,” said Siren, who has worked closely with Kantar and his counterparts in New Hampshire. A solid coating of snow or a sustained cold snap kill those larvae and stop the hunt, which scientists call “questing.” But snow has been arriving later in the fall across northern New England. Larvae gather in interlocking clumps on vegetation, and when one tick snags a passing victim, hundreds or thousands tag along for the ride. Unlike deer and dog ticks, winter ticks literally hunt in packs. “It’s on a very different scale than other areas of New England as far as other moose habitat that’s out there.” “Those populations up there are really high density,” said Alexej Siren, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vermont, said of the prime moose habitat that extends from northern New Hampshire across north-central Maine to parts of Piscataquis counties. The surge has been apparently driven by a combination of a warming climate and - at least in parts of Maine and New Hampshire - moose populations that are so dense that it’s easy for larval ticks to find a host. “That’s how detrimental these ticks are,” Kantar said. That’s 86% - a record high mortality rate since DIF&W began the tracking survey. Of the 70 moose calves that DIF&W collared in a remote wildlife management district spanning parts of Piscataquis and Somerset counties last winter, 60 of them had died by the beginning of May. Many adult cows can survive such a massive tick load. Some infested moose rub themselves virtually bald trying to scrape off the irritating ticks, creating the phenomenon known as “ghost moose.” It’s not uncommon for biologists or hunters to find moose infested with 40,000, 75,000 or even 90,000 ticks. But their numbers have exploded in parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota and southern Canada. Winter ticks, which are sometimes called moose ticks, have been pestering Maine moose for about a century and likely longer. “You look at one data sheet after another of what we found in the woods on these moose and it’s the same profile every time: it is winter tick,” said Lee Kantar, the lead moose biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. But in one of the moosiest corners of the state, nearly 90% of the calves tracked by biologists last winter didn’t survive their first year.Īnd the culprit? A tiny critter that is thriving in parts of Maine as the climate warms. Maine is home to the largest moose population in the lower 48 states. The moose showed signs of anemia, which Kantar says means she had been fed on by ticks and had extreme blood loss. Moose Number 59 was captured and fitted with a radio collar in the winter of 2014. Facebook Email State biologist Lee Kantar examines a dead moose on April 26, 2022.
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