Moose Hunts in Maine

Moose hunt articles will frequently include hunting in 7 or 8 U.S. States and Canada. However, this article specifically pertains to hunting moose in Maine!

Moose hunts in Maine are often a once-in-a-lifetime experience. No animal is more symbolic of Maine’s forests than the moose as officially attested the adoption as Maine’s state animal and its appearance on the state’s seal. According to early explorers, moose hunts in Maine were plentiful in New England during the 1600s; unfortunately, statewide populations had declined to a couple thousand by the early 1900s. Several factors contributed to the decline, including brain worm, unrestricted hunting (including market hunting), and clear cutting of forests for farmland. Concerns about the declining moose population in Maine in the early 1900s led to increased restrictions on hunting them until, in 1935 legal moose hunts ended.

Improving habitat conditions and protection from excessive hunting, allowed the moose population to increase dramatically. Reverting farmland increased the acreage of forested habitat available to moose in central and southern Maine. In northern Maine, changes in forest practices that included a larger amount of clear cutting provided moose with plentiful food source as cutover areas regenerated. Today, moose are widely distributed statewide but are most plentiful in northern, western, and eastern counties where more favorable climate and habitat conditions exist.

As the numbers of moose increased over time, interest in moose viewing and restoring moose hunts also increased. In 1980, following 45 years of no legal moose hunting, Maine’s moose herd increased to the point where the restoration of a very conservative and limited open season was authorized by the Maine legislature. It allowed the Department to issue 700 permits to resident hunters to hunt moose on the north side of the Canadian Pacific Railroad tracks during the last week of September. The new law made no provision to distribute hunting pressure, and hunters concentrated east of Moosehead Lake, which was a popular area for moose watching. The harvest was overly high in this area and caused public concern.

Following the 1980 moose season, Maine legislators passed a law providing for annual moose hunting seasons beginning in 1982 in accordance with very specific requirements and a means of distributing hunting pressure by assigning hunters to zones.

In 1999 and for the first time in Maine history, the legislature gave all responsibility for administering the these hunts in the year 2001 and thereafter to the DIF&W. In addition, the Department put together a public working group to develop the necessary goals and objectives that will guide moose management in Maine for the next several years.

Wildlife Management District 17 was open to moose hunting in 2003 for the first time in modern moose hunting history. An additional four Wildlife Management Districts in south Maine (WMDs 15, 16, 23, and 26) were opened to moose hunts in 2008 to provide more hunting opportunity and to address goals to reduce the moose population because of highway safety issues.