Shorter winters in Maine’s woodlands have created a huge problem for the state’s iconic moose, in the form of tiny blood-sucking ticks that thrive in warmer weather and which last year killed nearly 90% of Maine moose calves. Now the northern New England state is studying a counter-intuitive solution to the climate-driven problem: can Maine help its moose population by allowing big game hunters to kill more rather than less of them each autumn? “We’ve seen that areas with lower moose density tend to have healthier moose with fewer ticks,” said state Moose Biologist Lee Kantar, who is running the study. “The ticks can’t survive without a host.” Maine’s messy dilemma reflects how climate change is transforming biospheres the world over by expanding the northward range of parasi...
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