Plan to Boost Moose Population
It was in 2012 that moose populations in the Prince George region were determined to have declined by as much as 50%. Province wide, the moose population has declined by an estimated 27,500 since 2011.
The moose enhancement strategy will focus on growing moose populations for the benefit of all BC residents. While conservation is the first priority, the Province also has to juggle issues of First Nations rights, hunting and predator management, access and habitat management.
There are a number of actions that could be taken, but the two most readily available are changes to hunting regulations and controlling access.
The strategy will be developed using interim findings from the province wide moose research project (launched in 2013) and the Provincial Framework for Moose Management report which was completed one year ago.
“Moose is the most-demanded species for resident hunters” says George Wilson, President of the BC Wildlife Federation. In 2013 there were 33,107 licensed hunters that harvested an estimated 6,890 moose. That harvest level is below hunter demand, and historical harvest levels. Between 1981 and 1990, there were, on average, 41,651 hunters, and the average annual harvest was 12,554 “Recovering moose populations in partnership with stakeholders, industry and First Nations across the Province is a positive step forward” says Wilson.
The Province has hired Al Gorley, former Chair of the BC Forest Practices Board, to work with stakeholders and First Nations in developing a moose enhancement strategy.
Comments
Hopefully this strategy includes taking away of shooting the bulls in their prime. We can’t repopulate with bulls that are too old.
Shut down cow and calf season, and target the main reason moose is on the decline CN Rail has increased its trains by at least 50%,killing thousands of moose in this province every year.
doneright. CN has probably increased the LENGTHS of their trains by 50% or more, however they have if anything actually reduced the number of trains per day.
So you could probably make a case for them killing less moose than in the past. Having said that, the number of moose killed by trains is still very high.
Easier access to remote areas by hunters in probably one of the reasons that populations are down. In addition we have the tick problem, and of course urban expansion.
If we use UNBC as an example, we can see where we have taken some excellent moose habitat and replaced it with a University and we are now filling it up with sub divisions, and eventually malls, etc;
So goes urban expansion, so goes the moose.
Having a large number of Elk in the area, might also be a factor.
PA lope, I know for a fact they have increased the number of trains, as well as the number of boxcars. I have talked to a few conductors and the moose that have been hit and are still being hit are staggering. Moose also run into the side of the trains out of blind fear, hence the longer the train the more this can happen, they just don’t get hit by the engine. Banff built a bridge to stop the elk from being hit on the road, why because Joe public was seeing the carnage. We don’t get to see the carnage in most cases done by CN Rail. You want to see a moose get hit by a train you have to go to Tube and the moose it shows gets hit in the summer not winter when the carnage is a lot worse. Take a passenger train in late spring, west or east of the city and you will see the carcasses and old blood stains in the melting snow.
When a cow moose get hit chances are she is pregnant with 1 or 2 calves, so that’s a loss of 3 moose and an entire generation.
The BC Government has said 10 moose poached in 1 area is a total loss of 50 to 60 moose in 5 years
So the amount of damage CN causes to all wildlife Moose, deer. Elk etc. is staggering.
Hmm doneright. Are you making a case for Northern Gateway pipe?
ACCESS control should factor in “ALL” modes of transport, you can not pick and choose…without prejudice!! This means no hunting by horseback, no hunting by jet boat and no hunting by means of aviation. Afterall is it not accessibility that we are most concerned about!! What about poor old pops who cant get around like he used to because of health/disability issues!! Fish&Wildlife had this grandeur plan of implementing an LEH program that would last 10 years max and we would have sooooooooooo many moose that they would be like grapes on the vine…what happened?? Why has it taken this long to listen or actually show your concerns. A lot of the guides in BC are foreign ownership with clients of foreign nationality, are we the resident hunter going to sit idle while you continue to let the “guide” use whatever means of transport he deems necessary?? While we the resident are sent to the stalls to flounder in horse crap.
What is the Moose kill by train compared to population. Yes trains kill moose but the tracks only cover a very small part of the province.
Urban sprawl compared to the surrounding area PG covers a small area.
There has to be other reasons, urban sprawl and tracks are nothing new. Poaching what is its effect? Native hunting, numbers?
seamutt, the first job I had when I graduated high school was with CN, the first winter I worked part of our section’s job was to clean moose carcasses off of the tracks when applicable. From late December through to spring the amount of carnage was staggering. Hunting & natural predation in this area could not even come close to the numbers of moose were killed by trains & this was only one small part of the province.
Look at a map of the province, then look at the area covered by the tracks.
Seamutt yes the tracks do only cover a small mount, but in winter all animals will take the easiest path, hence railroad tracks because there is little snow on them. So a animal wondering through the bush is going to find rail tracks sooner or latter and follow them.
The second cause is cow calf season and the gross mismanagement of our wildlife.
We noticed ten years ago that the moose population was declining, and it took our experts in government another 7 years it to figure out.
Cow calf season needs to be shut down now.
They allow a calf season now to seniors and youths, So all most every hunting camp you go by have some one over 65 or under 18 in it. I even seen a senior last year using a walker in his camp, funny thing I never seen him out of his camp, yet he managed to walk a steep hill and shoot a calf, (so he says)
When most of the time you know dam well its not the 13 year old shooting the calf or the senior. Its the abled bodies that are in there camp and the seniors are clipping there tags.
Doneright. Not sure where you get your **facts** from in regards to the number of trains being run by railways. Perhaps you could let us know how many trains per day run through Prince George as opposed to say 20 years ago.
To give you some examples. Lumber trains to-day are twice as long as they were 20 years ago. The same applies to wheat, and coal trains. The closure of pulp mills, sawmills, plywood plants, etc; in North Central BC have reduced the tonnage being shipped significantly. The only increase is in container trains that would be approx. 1 train per day in each direction.
So overall I would say we have a decrease in the number of trains per day.
I love hunting, think wild meat the best to eat.
But, we have a serious problem in our area. I hate to see it, but I think the only thing that can be done is shutting down moose season for a few years, and really hope they come back in good numbers.
Palopy
Type in or copy any of these links to see how much or how long are trains now are.
You will see that are trains have increased a minimum of 50%
And lets not forgot how many coal trains ran right through prime wildlife areas.
http://www.news1130.com/2014/05/05/more-oil-moving-by-train-some-through-bc-national-energy-board/
http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/canadas-oil-industry-cuts-long-term-production-growth-forecast-to-4-8m-bpd?__lsa=220e-ee90
http://www.nationalpost.com/long+trains/4348592/story.html
I read these comments with interest & notice that no one mentions that moose don’t like to live in a desert without trees. Take a drive down the Blackwater south of PG & Vanderhoof or the back way to Fort St James pretty well every place u go in the central interior u will find a moon scape as a result of the logging industry over harvesting allegedly to remove the dead pine. A lot of these areas are prime winter habitat for moose and it is getting few & far between these days. If we want to increase moose populations we need to focus on habitat as well as trains , hunting pressures other factors. Won’t be any more moose in 10 years if we don’t address the real problem. (Habitat Loss)
I see dead moose carcasses laying around all over the city at all times of the year, this has to stop. Too much urban sprawl, and a study has to be done if there is enough food to sustain a moose now that most of the old growth forest are virtually all gone.
I doubt regular hunting has very much of an impact on the total moose population when you look at the game managements own numbers. I think poaching and the fact natives can harvest as many as they like at any time of the year on their traditional territory has a greater impact. Cut out calf season in all MUs, including 7-16 and 7-23 and ban ATVs in ALL MUs, not just a select few. Ban calf hunting for both seniors and youth, in the case of seniors, they have had years of easy hunting and if they have to roll with the times, so be it, in the case of youth, they simply haven’t paid into the system long enough or have earned the right to access game that the majority can’t.
Palopu
Check these links, you are wrong then are more trains now then ever before.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Rail+shipments+crude+continue+increase/10733394/story.html
http://www.forestethics.org/facts-about-oil-trains-north-america
And don’t forgot the decline of moose has been going on for the last 10 to 15 years.
So all the sawmills and plywood plants were running then.
The decline has not happened in the 3 or 4 years its been happing for years and it takes years to recover, but we are almost at a point of no return unless the Goverment acts now.
The wolf population appears to be “extremely healthy” in Northeastern BC and it is having an impact on it’s prey populations. How is the wolf population in the Prince George region and is it playing a part in the declining moose population?
This is an ongoing debate. Logic would dictate that if moose were the main thing on wolves diet, moose populations are declining so should not wolf populations follow? Instead of destroying predators like wolves for a perceived problem one would think that that a well managed, educated ministry would try to discover why said predator numbers are growing & what they are actually eating. Do wolves kill moose? Yep. Are wolves the main reason moose populations are declining (which some would have you believe)? No way.
Of course the wolfs are killing off the moose. Also the black bears are rempant. We need to eliminate both for awhile. Also stop calf hunting in the fall. I was born and raised in this country, I know what I’m talking about.
Good thing you are only onemansthoughts because without predators around to take care of the sick and injured you would have a lot more disease and that can kill off a lot more than a pack of wolves would. Its amazing how wolves, moose, bear, cougars, deer all seemed to survive amongst each other without mans intervention for thousands of years, but of course we know it all, and know exactly what the fix is.
The argument that wolves, moose, bear, cougars, deer all seemed to survive amongst each other without man’s intervention makes no sense since man NOW “harvests” a large number of deer and moose annually, thereby upsetting the balance of nature established without the interference of man. Building of logging roads into previously wild areas, snowmobiles chasing them down for an easy kill, allowing silent bow hunting within city limits, poaching…just a few reasons why these animals are in a decline.
Mother Nature gets no respect.
Predators kill more than the sick and injured, that’s a fact.
PrinceGeorge, you’re kidding right? —->”snowmobiles chasing them down for an easy kill, allowing silent bow hunting within city limits”
Where do you see sleds chasing them down? Silent bowhunting? That’s freaking hilarious dude.
What does being born & raised here have anything to do with understanding the nature of this problem? My wife was born & raise here but I seriously doubt she could tell the difference between a caribou & an elk. Eliminating predator species will do nothing more than exacerbate an already serious problem. The wolves do prey on moose but they, or bears, are not the main reason moose numbers are declining.
If predators are a main cause of low moose counts then it stands to reason that there should be a big decline in all prey species, like deer, but they are very healthy and they have more predators after them than moose do.
Another point is that I am seeing a awfull lot of whitetail deer in and around my area. I do know that the whitetail carry a tick which doesn’t affect the host but is deadly on moose.
Please elaborate. I’ve been an avid hunter/outdoorsman for decades and never heard of such a thing.
Draft report released earlier this week: Monitoring and Mitigation of Moose Rail Mortality in Northern BC: Year 7 Draft Report Telkwa and Fraser Subdivisions
Contact your local wildlife club for a copy.
Deer population down drastically along with Cariboo. Only Elk doing well. Deactivate forestry roads, kill wolves (if they are the number 1 mortality of cariboo you can bet they are of moose and deer too), eliminate cow calf season and get a grip on FN hunting- it should be managed at some level. I saw 23 wolves last season. Lastly keep up bear hunting as they reek havoc on calves. And get rid of those fragging atvs!
I’m sure the rednecks up here will say, “it’s all the fault of them dirty wolves and bears. C’mon Kristy, let us wipe them out and there will be plenty of them mooses for the killin'”.
By the middle of the last century moose numbers in Sweden were dangerously low, with open access and unrestricted hunting leading to overexploitation. But thanks to careful management, the total moose population in the country recovered and has stabilised at 400,000. The density of animals in the forest is three times that of Canada and 10 times that of Russia.
At the same time, the number of moose killed by hunters has risen tenfold since 1945 to about 100,000 each year. Half of these are “harvested” in the first few weeks of the the annual hunt.
I’m pretty sure the Swedes don’t have First Nations subsistence hunting to deal with.
You are neglecting the main focus of the article that you are directly quoting, word for word, from. In Sweden hunting is almost like a religion & the hunting lobby is compared to the mafia. You neglect to state the reasons given in the article not only for the explosion of moose population but also the political force behind it. You also neglected to state in your comment below why predator numbers are so low in Sweden, culled (killed) to satisfy the demands of moose hunters & farmers with absolutely no credible science behind their reasoning.
HaHaHa you would be wrong about that. And even if it was an issue how is that we shoot 6000 legal moose on 100 million hectares and they shoot 100,000 moose on 40 million hectares in a heavily developed rail roaded industrial nation?
THere are 150 wolves and 3000 bears in Sweden and 13,000 wolves and likely more than 17,000 grizzly and 200,000 blacks in BC. Predator control isn’t about removing predators it’s about putting some balance to natures random chaos.
Cupricity, you are defeating your own argument. BC is over 2 times the size of Sweden & 4 times less densely populated. Of course we have a much higher predator count, we are much larger & more importantly the majority of our population is concentrated within 200 km of the border. Natures random chaos??? While it may seem random it most certainly is not. Nature looks after itself quite well. Cruel & seemingly unfair? Yes. Self regulating without the arrogant, self serving hand of humans. Again, yes. The moment we step in to “regulate, control & balance” is the moment we screw it all up. Before you dismiss this post as the rantings of some tree hugging hippie…I grew up hunting, I grew up with a healthy respect for all nature & natural balance. Take no more than you need & NEVER kill anything without a damn good reason ie; self defence or preservation.
I haven’t been seeing a lot of moose, but I think a lot of it is that they are just a lot smarter than they use to be. When I see them on the side of the highway they tend to run to the bush more, where as in the past they seemed to just stand there or even charge. It could be just darwinism weeding out the easy pry?
On the other hand I have never seen so many of the smaller animals as I’ve seen in the last year or so. Foxes, rabbits, owls, hawks, and even lynx and cougars have all been much more prevalent in recent years.
Oh I wish we still had moose like the good old days. Up in the Summit Lake area people used to line up on the power lines and take turns getting their moose.
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