Shed hunter Drew Maciel recently found two dead moose while searching for antlers this month. Both were covered in winter ticks and had significant hair loss.

He said he has encountered six dead moose with heavy tick loads this spring. About half were young animals, while the others were fairly large.

Moose biologist Lee Kantar recently discussed winter ticks and Maine’s moose on the Vortex Nation podcast.

Kantar said the state has been documenting winter ticks since 2006, though wardens noted them more than 100 years ago.

Unlike dog and deer ticks, which take blood meals from multiple hosts at different life stages, winter ticks spend their entire life cycle on a single animal. They attach to moose in September as larvae, then molt into adults, breed and the females drop off in spring to lay masses of roughly 1,000 eggs on the ground.

Those eggs hatch over the summer. The larvae climb onto vegetation and wait for a host to pass by.

“The biggest problem,” Kantar said, “is once it attaches to the moose in the fall, whether it’s 50 degrees or 50 below, it makes no difference. The tick is living on the moose.”

He said more than 90,000 ticks have been counted on a single animal and explained how heavy infestations can lead to death.

If roughly half of 50,000 ticks are females, they can each take more than 1 milliliter of blood to produce eggs. This drains so much blood from the animal that it becomes anemic.

Kantar said that unlike deer, which regularly groom using their teeth and hooves to remove ticks, moose do not.

“There are very systematic levels to how moose deal with winter ticks,” he said.

Sometimes the hair shaft breaks off from winter rubbing, leaving the white shaft — coining the term “ghost moose.” Some moose rub off all their hair, which can abrade the skin and lead to bacterial infection.

He believes rubbing the coat is a learned behavioral response. Many moose entering their first winter do not have missing hair. By their second year, they begin grooming and rubbing and continue to do so for the rest of their lives.

Kantar said that based on observations from radio-collared moose, animals captured in January can begin losing about a pound of body weight per day until little remains. By late winter, they may lose about 30% of their body weight.

“It’s a dead moose walking,” he said. “They basically go septic at some point.”

Small animals are the most vulnerable, he said. An 8-month-old moose calf captured in January may weigh about 400 pounds.

“It needs to be that much weight,” he said. “Even without ticks, a calf entering winter has no fat because it’s still growing its skeletal mass and is in a deficit.”

An 800-pound cow has the benefit of entering winter with fat reserves.

Even so, adult moose still lose condition. If a cow goes into winter pregnant, the fetus requires nutrition while tens of thousands of ticks are taking blood.

A moose’s winter diet lacks the protein needed to replace lost blood.

Kantar and colleagues in New Hampshire have found that cows often survive heavy tick loads but give birth to calves that are underweight, do not survive or struggle because the cow may not produce enough milk.

Using data from roughly 1,000 collared moose over 13 years, Kantar said adult mortality is relatively low compared to calves. Fall tick counts from index samples collected at harvest can help predict spring outcomes.

In some years, more than 70% of collared calves have died due to winter ticks.

The worst year saw 87% mortality. The best was 8%.

Kantar said there appears to be a strong link between moose density and tick abundance. More moose on the landscape means more ticks.

That link led to a five-year adaptive hunt in wildlife management district 4 aimed at reducing cow numbers and studying impacts on tick loads and reproduction. Results from that study are expected this summer.

While some have proposed treatments such as acaricides to manage winter ticks, Kantar said the scale makes them ineffective and expensive. Future management may instead focus on forest practices that help spread moose across the landscape.

Next steps include conducting fine-scale work with adult moose using high fixed-rate GPS collars. Kantar hopes to better understand where individual animals are each week over their lifetimes, and how forest management may play a role.

It’s finally that time of year. warmer weather is here, and outdoor dining is right around the corner.

In Maine, that’s the real sign that spring has arrived. Restaurants, cafés, and bars start setting up their patios and sidewalk tables, and suddenly everything feels right in the world. After a long, tough winter, it’s a simple but welcome reminder that we made it through.

It also means Maine is gearing up for another year of hordes of tourists rolling into the state to enjoy all it has to offer. And local fare is certainly high on that list—because it’s, well, delicious.

How Great is Maine as a Foodie State?

We spend massive amounts of time discussing and dissecting every little aspect of the Maine restaurant scene. Whether it’s Portland, the surrounding area, Bar Harbor, Central Maine, the Midcoast, the Western Foothills, or the Southern Coast, this state is an absolute gold mine.

With warmer weather and longer days rolling in, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at some of the state’s best restaurants for outdoor seating—the spots that not only serve great food but also offer beautiful views of Maine’s charming towns and stunning landscapes.

Outdoor dining has absolutely blown up in Maine since 2020, with countless restaurants making use of any available outside space. It’s been a huge hit with both locals and tourists.

We put out the call for the joints Mainers say have the best outdoor dining—the restaurants that help shape a community and keep our stomachs full.

Now, thanks to our stations’ social media, we can finally put some names to those establishments.

What are the Best Maine Restaurants for Outdoor Dining?

Below is a list of many of the restaurants that were suggested to us. They vary in size, concept, and location. Some have opened recently, while others have been community staples for years. But they’re all true Maine originals.

READ MORE: Maine’s Chase’s Daily Named One of America’s Best Vegetarian Restaurants

You can check out the full list below. Hope you’re hungry—I know I am.

A Maine Republican Party online survey on the gubernatorial primary has sparked frustration and exposed divisions among the crowded field just a week before the party aims to project unity at its convention in Augusta.

Multiple campaigns told the Bangor Daily News they were not aware of the poll in advance or had not received the survey in an email sent out widely by the party last week. The campaigns said the survey’s timing and the fact that not every candidate had the chance to work the poll and vote for themselves sent the wrong message.

Former fitness executive Ben Midgley won the straw poll, which the party noted was not scientific. His campaign cited the nearly 32% support as a sign of rising momentum in a race that’s been led so far by lobbyist and former federal official Bobby Charles. Charles came in second at almost 30%, and entrepreneur Jonathan Bush came in third at 13%.

Charles has led previous polls without spending nearly as much on advertising as Bush or groups backing lobbyist and former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason. Midgley was among a large group of candidates stuck in the single digits in a survey released in March by Pan Atlantic Research.

Staffers at two campaigns said there was briefly talk of boycotting the convention after the poll. Delegates are poised to gather over Friday and Saturday at Augusta Civic Center, where the party says another straw poll is planned.

Mason said he did not see the survey in his email but acknowledged it may have been received by his team without it getting up the chain.

“It probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do for party unity,” Mason said. “It’s not the best look.”

Vincent Harris, a Charles spokesperson, said the campaign “did not push or promote this straw poll to a single person.” He said the campaign was unaware of the survey until Midgley’s release.

“As Republicans, we believe voter integrity is important and yet there was no clarity here,” he added.

Entrepreneur Owen McCarthy’s campaign was also not aware of the online stroll poll until after results were released. A spokesman for the campaign called it “unfortunate that with the convention right around the corner, the whole process has been tainted by the perception that party insiders are trying to foist their preferred candidate onto grassroots primary voters.”

Jason Savage, executive director of the Maine GOP, said the party believed all the candidates had received the poll, but “we take everybody at their word that says they didn’t receive it.”

He and a spokesperson for the Bush campaign also separately noted that the straw poll was discussed during a pre-convention Zoom meeting, and he said it went to the party’s entire email list. The poll went to at least two BDN email addresses.

Savage emphasized that the convention poll would be “one person, one vote” per delegate.

“Everything in a few days is going to be about the convention,” he said. “Everybody is invited to compete and do their best and see how they can do.”