Larry, via email (somewhat edited) asks… So how many moose-auto collisions recorded this year in Saskatchewan?
This is one we can simply eat our way our of. 🙂
When discussing the issue with people I’ve met at the annual Sportsman’s Show, put on annually in March by the Saskatoon Wildlife Federation, I was told that there are a number of hunters who like being able to hunt a moose on farmland: where it’s easier to spot them, easier to hunt them, drive up to the carcass, load it in a truck and drive away. I think these people would also, if given the opportunity, prefer to have local swimming pools filled with pike, walleye and trout.
Secondly, some have told me that a few farmers claim to like having moose on their land and area and don’t want them severely reduced or eliminated. That if that is the plan, they promise to post all the land they own and/or control ‘No Hunting’.
Because nowadays, the remaining farmers do control or farm so much land, many of the S.W.F. hunters are scared of that and acquiesce.
Thirdly, and this I’ve surmised myself, previously wildlife management in Sask. was done by hunters and those who grew up with a farm/agricultural view of wild game as important but less than human value. However, over the last 20 years, a number of animal rights utopian fantasylanders have moved in the Dept. of the Environment and are biasing the decisions covertly.
While SARM influence has kept varmints on open season e.i. coyotes, foxes, crows, magpies, gophers etc. For large animals, traditionally, this was done to protect people and livestock.
The animal rights types think having large numbers of elk, moose and more cougars in farm areas as a “return to nature”. Think Gaia, pantheism/animist values, and a rejection of man’s (Biblical) “dominion” over nature.
A few years ago, a number of auto moose collision deaths occurred over the summer. Finally, one included a mountie responding to a call racing down the highway near North Battleford.
My repeated calls to Gormley’s show finally got a response, as many were clearly thinking as you and I do. The Wall government promised to increase the number of farmland moose licences, which it did.
Anyone I talked to around Saskatoon and a hour or so drive, seemed to be filling their tags pretty quick and easy. It’s hard not to spot a big, dark moose in a crop field, snow or no snow. However, the number of licences was not enough, even over the last 3-4 years to really drop the population to previous safer levels.
Last year a Sask. Dept. of Environment scientist researcher was on John Gormley’s show. Instead of deciding what number of moose licences were needed to protect the people driving on highways and grid roads, he was trying to save as many moose as possible.
He came up with an experiment of collaring a small number of female moose in a few areas to determine which moose could be predicted to cross highways and thus target only them.
Too often there are none so stupid as the “educated” people.
This scientist reported on some “preliminary” results: females don’t move around as much as they thought. (Gee whiz, what mammal raising young does?) Of course, this scientist stated that his findings indicate a need for expanded funding and collaring more moose for a larger more definitive result. Another two years??
Premier Wall, the last time he addressed the issue on Gormley’s show stated the government wanted to base it’s policy on science.
So, to offset whatever politics are going on behind the scene, we need to find out what stats are kept by whom, SERM/SGI? I suspect they are not complete with listings of deaths, injuries and data on where, when and what type of moose was involved.
Then keep making that public and hang the death/injury rates around the government’s neck. Nothing less will get the numbers reduced to much safer levels. I don’t know if the number of accidents/injuries/deaths have gone down or it’s just that less detail is released to the media to keep the issue an “insider” one.
This is a serious issue here and certainly in Newfoundland, too. And likely some other areas.
Not quite the same thing, but I worked in Michigan for a while. There are – in one STATE – 30,000 deer/auto collisions annually. Now, I’m not a hunter, and not a huge wildlife lover, but I’m under the impression that deer are generally (that’s generally!) smaller than moose, and that while your chance of surviving a wildlife/car collision is fairly high, your odds in a moose/car collision are lower than those involving deer.
This is one of those tricky questions, isn’t it? Surely no one is advocating exterminating all deer/moose/elk/caribou. However, when the number of animals rise, there is a threat to human life. But, how big is the threat, and what is the best way to minimize it?
Some posters above have suggested “more alert driving”, and I understand that some collisions can be avoided, but there is a reason for the phrase “deer in the headlights”.
Put the high-frequency warblers on all cars to scare away the animals as you approach? Not a bad idea, and my brother-in-law did that when he had two kids at university in upstate NY (after his first run-in with a deer!). But, the warblers decrease fuel economy, which means more CO2 in the atmosphere.. ZOMG, how will we decide?
Getting some statistics on size/makeup of herds seems to be prudent, and I’m not sure what the best way of doing that is.
However, surely one of the problems is the banning of hunting in certain rural jurisdictions (not really in favour of deer hunts in metro Toronto – and there are wild deer here!). That makes all the hunters want to come to one jurisdiction where they know they have a shot at a trophy, and if the wildlife management has made an error in its estimates (as seems to be the case from the reports above), then it backfires rapidly.
Good old New Brunswick has fenced off several major highways and it has certainly reduced death by moose.
For the moose that can’t read there are turnstiles if they do get on the highway.
Not sure how this is going to work once the Liberals finish tolling everything.
Surely no one is advocating exterminating all deer/moose/elk/caribou.
That’s exactly what needs to happen in non-traditional areas of expansion. Especially in the case of moose.
And before the nutty leftist hunter orgs decide they need to ‘conserve’ them with other people’s money and free feed from the landowners.
http://www.wildlifecollisions.ca/northernbc.htm
Good article on moose/vehicle collisions,and YES, their eyes DO reflect light.
Nobody reintroduced moose to the prairie. They did it all by themselves without a governmental program. Farming practice probably had a lot to do with it.
The bottom line is, wolves,bison,grizzled bears moose all occupied the prairie landscape before man kind altered it.
Following the extirpation of the bison,passenger pigeon, Labrador duck etc far reaching thinkers like Aldo Leopold, Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir decided wildlife was worth having around and formulated a plan which became the ‘north American Plan. It was adopted by by the US and Canada. It has been successful juxtaposed against the experience in Europe. It is not perfect and wildlife management is not an exacting science .
Nature left to it’s own is not perfect either. Populations go out of control and by nesessity require management. Some need assistance. It is a private/public venture.
YES, their eyes DO reflect light.
Only when they’re looking directly at you, which isn’t often. Otherwise you may only see a very slight reddish spot.
Nature left to it’s own is not perfect either. Populations go out of control and by nesessity require management.
Heh, like was mentioned earlier, odd wildlife survived on it’s own without ‘management’for thousands of years.
Wildlife ‘management’ is code for getting other people’s stuff for free.
Strad – ever see a whooping crane? That’s but one example of wildlife surviving on its own. How about an Eskimo Curlew? Oh I forgot they haven’t been seen since the 80’s -the 1980’s.
As long as we humans keep destroying habitat through farming, mining, resource extraction or whatever activity we engage in isn’t it encumbant upon us to do something to help the displaced wildlife?
Does wildlife have any value whatsoever, or is the zoo it’s only rightful place?
Professional wildlife managers make mistakes, just like humans in all other endeavors. The N American model while not perfect has serve7ppd us well. It is an amalgam of public and private effort.
Animals and birds on your property are your neighbors. It’s ok to give them some consideration.
How about an Eskimo Curlew? Oh I forgot they haven’t been seen since the 80’s -the 1980’s.
Gee, all since the advent of public ‘conservation’. How could that have happened? heh
Oh right, ‘Professional wildlife managers make mistakes’…anyway, are you sure, they did lose thousands of caribou…?
Animals and birds on your property are your neighbors.
I notice you didn’t say good neighbours.
In northwestern Ontario, hunters also pounded the deer population. In some years, there were more non-resident deer hunters in one WMU in the north-west than Manitoba allows in the entire province.
Must admit, managing human interaction with managing wildlife must be like herding cats.
I drive Hanley to Saskatoon nearly every day. That stretch of Hwy 11 is constantly littered with deer and moose carcasses. Yesterday, at least a dozen in a 50 km stretch.
Yet I hear NO reports of collisions at all.