PG Moose Symposium

[XMD70]

Couldn't make it to the symposium, I was out of town. What happened?

[BRvalley]

interesting, wish I had known and attended

I moved up to chetwynd last year...for what it's worth, we've found 4 moose carcasses in the past month, from moberly lake to gwillim lake area, east to stewart lake area...appears to be ticks as best as we can guess and the carcasses were hardly touched by scavengers

have also seen some rough looking moose with fur rubbed off....and a bull that was walking/swimming straight up the pine river by my place, didn't appear to be feeding from the hour i watched him, just walking striaght up the river...not sure if that is predators pushing him in the river or relief from bugs(which weren't that bad to me)

will there be other meetings coming up? I'd like to attend if there are any more

[ianwuzhere]

. Was interesting to note that 80 percent of those who hunt 7a were from the south. DD

i hear declare this as being the cause of the decline ;)

[XMD70]

good presentation by the bio's from regions 6, 7a and 7b... counts are being done in all areas, region six is holding steady in most areas, a couple of areas in the southern part are down both population and cow calf ration... 7b is doing well with the population holding steady, however there is not a ton of data available for the more remote areas. Region 7a is down from 2005 substantially, holding its own or slightly increasing over 2011 counts. Cow tags have been reduced by 90 percent. no one thing was pinpointed as the reason for the decline, however wolves and habitat seemed to hold the most weight. Those in the room were overwhelmingly in support of either closing the calf season or see it go to a youth only hunt. Was interesting to note that 80 percent of those who hunt 7a were from the south. DD
About what I expected. It seems to have been a perfect storm situation for the moose in 7A. Ever since region 5 went to LEH only for moose it would be my guess that hunters from the south have moved north by one region. All the other factors contributed their parts too. Perhaps if the herbicide use was scaled back for while it would allow the carrying capacity and cover to be restored a little quicker. Any discussion about things like that? Any indication from forest tenure holders that they might be willing to adjust their practices to help out? Cutting back on the harvest is not a good long term solution, in my opinion. It's far better to work on increasing ungulate numbers. Maybe we need the equivalent of a Ducks Unlimited for moose hunters.

[junkyard_g]

The ministry would have to make changes to the free to grow regulations to allow more deciduous in the free to grow stand for tenure holders to reduce the amount of herbicide they use. Of course they can do more manual brushing but its hard to get any major licensee to purposely hurt their bottom line without hard evidence that the practice of herbicide use is hurting moose numbers. Personally I see heavier moose use in the older cutblocks anyway so I don't know how much of an impact it would have.