Everything Moose in Maine with Lee Kantar
Friends of Baxter Podcast hosts Jensen Bissell and Bill Green sit down with Lee Kantar, Maine State Moose Biologist with Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. Lee discusses his 21-year career with IF&W, how he got there, winter tick in Maine and its impact on Maine’s moose population.
“The mortality crux is…right before they turn a year old, that’s the time. And it’s interesting because with most populations, people talk about recruitment, and recruitment t is really defined…it’s when that animal enters the population as has…the same survival ability as all adults. With moose calves we used to think, that if it’s born in May and makes it into fall, it’s recruited into the population. I would say, ‘No, that is not what happens.’ It makes it into the fall, and then it has to go through winter, and make it through the winter tick vortex until the following year…Then, when it’s a year old, now it’s part of the population, and its survival level goes way up.”