I spent the past three nights up near the Quebec border with good friends on a combination turkey hunting trip (no luck) and smelt fishing trip (the spring creeks were thick with them). Inevitably I am now exhausted, but I came back with loads of good ideas for Down East articles, future Mike Bowditch stories, and that general uplift in spirits that always follows a visit to the North Woods. Saw lots of very healthy looking moose and deer. Evening grosbeaks, too.
Counting Moose
There's a scene in Bad Little Falls in which Mike tags along with Charley Stevens and his daughter Stacey as they conduct an aerial moose survey. When I wrote those chapters, I was being deliberately anachronistic. Moose and deer surveys are mostly done with helicopters these days. But I wanted to get my three characters in a small plane together.
That said, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has just announced the findings of "Stacey's" survey:
The Department currently estimates a population of 76,000 moose after using a double count technique the last two winters where two observers independently reported the number of moose observed while flying in a helicopter over northern and eastern Maine.
During the winter of 2010-2011, the Department used the technique, adapted from Quebec and New Brunswick where it was utilized to count deer, to survey Wild Management Districts (WMDs) 2, 3 and 6 with the help of the Maine Forest Service and funds from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund.
It was then decided that the aerial survey was far more accurate and efficient than the previously used methods, including transect counts from fixed wing, line-track intercept techniques, a modified Gasaway survey and Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR).
By their nature, these woodland aerial surveys are catch-as-catch-can. A moose can very easily hide in deep cover. But biologists do what they can to be methodical, as you can see from this video:
Cougars on the Loose!
The mountain lion, puma, catamount, or cougar was extirpated from the state of Maine many decades ago, but rumors of big cat sightings have persisted. In recent years, physical evidence of mountain lions has even been recovered.
The first question for biologists is whether these are truly wild cats or animals released into the outdoors by people who can't care for them (cougars are evidently quite cheap and easy to purchase) or perhaps by idealists who nurture vague dreams of repopulating Maine's woods with genuinely dangerous felines. The second question biologists ask is whether wild mountain lions are expanding their range across the eastern United States, and if so, how many cats do you need to start a viable breeding population.
In the new issue of Down East, Paul J. Fournier, author of the much recommended Tales from Misery Ridge, takes on these questions. Paul is a Registered Maine Guide, former sporting camp owner, and spokesman for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, so his lifelong chase of mountain lions in Maine makes for required reading—at least if you enjoy reading about the North Woods.
Moose Calling Contest
My friend, Greg Drummond, was a finalist at yesterday's first World Championship Moose Calling Invitational in Oquossoc, Maine. Greg is a Master Maine Guide and probably the finest outdoorsman I know. He runs Claybrook Mountain Lodge in Highland Plantation with his lovely wife Pat, and he is responsible for many of the nature details you'll find in my books. I wish I'd had the good sense to head over to the Rangeley Lakes for this amusing event—especially since it might have helped hone my own sorry moose-calling skills—but congratulations to Greg on making it to the finals.
The World's Deadliest Animals
Over at Maine Crime Writers today I have a post about one of the most macabre books I have read in years. Gordon Grice's The Book of Deadly Animals is a bestiary of every large (meaning: bigger than a microbe) creature ever known to predate on human beings. It's full of amazing factoids like this one:
- The most formidable large predator in the world is the orca, or killer whale, which has been known to rip the tongues out of blue whales for the sheer hell of it, leaving the peaceful giants to bleed to death; leap onto the land to snatch a sunbathing seal; and holdgreat white sharks out of the water to “drown” the gill breathers in the air (before eating their livers).
As a mystery author who writes about game wardens—and therefore animals—this kind of trivia is like catnip. Click on over for my full review of this gruesome and gripping book.