Scientists challenge plans for U.P. moose hunt

While the rest of Michigan was preparing for the upcoming Christmas holiday, our state Senate and House quietly approved Senate Bill 1013 – to establish a proposed new hunting season for U.P. moose.

This legislation violates Public Act 377; mainly because (from its language and committee testimony) I can see the motives for SB 1013 are solely economic – and PA 377 requires the Natural Resources Commission “to use principles of sound scientific management in making decisions regarding the taking of game.”

A scientifically, well-managed herd should eventually be healthy and robust; at which point I could see the beneficial end result of an economically prosperous hunting season.

Further, the language in this bill creating an advisory council proposed to oversee this new moose season does not require any of its members to have scientific credentials or field experience with the Michigan moose herd and only mandates that they consider whether or not to “expand” the season once it’s initiated. All of this flies in the face of the law.

When this legislation was in committee, many qualified experts told our senators Upper Michigan’s moose herd is not yet to the scientific level of stability that would allow for a healthy hunting season. Our state records show that twice the Michigan moose population was recovering (in the late 1800s and the early 1940s) and twice hunting led to their near extirpation in the Upper Peninsula.

But an even more serious threat is the very real possibility of the herd’s elimination by disease or insect infestation. According to the MN-DNR, the northwestern portion of their herd dropped from 4,000 animals to 100 from the 1980s to present; and in the northeast from 7,600 to 5,500 in the past year. A drop like that would wipe out our herd entirely.

Our goal of 1,000 moose by the year 2000 was not achieved – and in fact the DNR’s aerial and population model surveys do not agree; so they really have no idea how many moose there are exactly. This moose population has not grown as predicted, precisely because it is challenged by a decade of unseasonably warm summers (moose are very susceptible to heat stroke), brain worm and deer ticks from the whitetail population and a surging wolf population.

Sen. Mike Prusi apparently has not consulted experts in his district (or worse, he doesn’t care about their opinion), otherwise he might not have cosponsored this bill with Sen. Jason Allen.

Dr. Rolf Peterson is Professor Emeritus of Wildlife Ecology at Michigan Technological University. He has studied Michigan moose for four decades and even has the Distinguished Moose Biologist Award from the North American Moose Conference, (awarded for major contributions toward management of moose in North America).

His work has been featured within internationally respected journals such as National Geographic, National Wildlife and Audubon. His record easily establishes him as the foremost expert on moose in Michigan – if not the planet. In fact the state of Minnesota selected him to chair the Moose Advisory Committee created to deal with – guess what – the recent dramatic moose population decline. Dr. Peterson testified before the Michigan Senate against adopting this legislation for the above-listed reasons.According to the summary of the committee hearing minutes on this legislation, “(Dr. Peterson) questions the wisdom of introducing new sources of moose mortality in the face of this challenge.” That’s good enough for me (and Proposal G).

Finally, this legislation could cost us money in litigation. Under the Voigt Decision, (related to the U.S. Treaty of LaPointe – 1842) neither the states nor the tribes may threaten the future existence of a fisheries or wildlife resource due to their management practices (considering the court’s definition of “usufructuary rights”). But even clearer is a much more recent consent agreement (2007) between Michigan, the U.S. and the five tribes of the 1836 Treaty of Washington, “no harvest of moose shall be permitted by the State or the Tribes unless the State and the Tribes agree that such harvest is appropriate and agree on an allocation of such harvest.”