Maine
Videos show dead Maine moose covered in winter ticks. How they kill.
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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.
Three tornadoes have been confirmed across New England so far in 2026, and remarkably, all of them have occurred in Vermont.
Two of those tornadoes touched down during severe thunderstorms on June 18, when a potent weather system swept across the region.
Vermont tornadoes in 2026 (WGME).
The National Weather Service confirmed an EF-1 tornado in Lincoln with peak winds of 105 mph and another EF-1 tornado in Woodstock with winds reaching 100 mph.
Earlier this spring, an EF-1 tornado struck Williamstown on April 16 with estimated winds of 90 mph.
This week’s Climate Chronicles question comes from Kate:
With severe weather last week, how often do we actually see tornadoes touch down in Maine?
Maine tornado activity (WGME).
Historically, Maine averages about two tornadoes each year, with most occurring between June and August.
Most storms develop during the late afternoon and early evening, typically between 3 and 9 p.m., when hours of sunshine have heated the ground and created the instability needed for thunderstorms to form.
The last confirmed tornado to touch down in Maine was in 2023.
Average amount of tornadoes that touch down in each New England state per year (WGME).
Massachusetts and Connecticut also average about two tornadoes per year, with many occurring across the flatter terrain of western portions of both states.
In Massachusetts, the broad Connecticut River Valley stretching through Springfield has earned the nickname “New England’s Tornado Alley” due to its history of tornado activity.
Vermont, on the other hand, typically averages just one tornado annually. With three confirmed tornadoes already in 2026, the state has already exceeded its yearly average by two, making this an unusually active year for tornadoes in the Green Mountain State.
Maine’s tornado history (GoSanAngelo, WGME).
Since 1950, Maine has recorded 140 tornadoes. None have been rated stronger than an EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, the system used to classify tornado intensity based on the damage they cause.
Unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are not assigned ratings while they are occurring. Instead, National Weather Service survey teams assess damage after the storm has passed, examining impacts to homes, buildings, trees, and other structures.
From that damage, meteorologists estimate the tornado’s wind speeds and assign an EF rating ranging from EF0 to EF5.
While Maine has experienced its share of tornadoes over the decades, the state has never recorded a violent EF4 or EF5 tornado.
Do you have any weather questions? Email our Weather Authority team at weather@wgme.com. We’d love to hear from you!
PORTLAND — Perhaps the June Swoon is over for the Portland Hearts of Pine.
A flurry of second-half activity Wednesday night resulted in four goals and a much-needed 5-1 USL League One victory against the Richmond Kickers that had fans buzzing with feel-good frenzy at Fitzpatrick Stadium.
Ollie Wright scored the go-ahead goal on a header off a great cross from Jaden Jones-Reilly in the 57th minute. In short order, Konstantinos Georgallides and Aboubacar Camara each added a goal, and then Camara got a second late in extra time.
Diego Gonzalez, playing his third game with Portland, added friskiness to the midfield and opened the scoring with a header in the first half. He also assisted on Camara’s first goal with a slick through pass.
Portland had lost four straight games, including three in a row in USL1. The Hearts are now 4-5-5 in league play and moved from 13th to 10th in the 17-team league, just three points out of the eight-team playoff picture.
It was a dramatic reversal from Portland’s most recent game, a 5-1 loss at Westchester SC on Friday that was shown live back in Portland at an open-air setting in Monument Square.
PREVIOUSLY IN JUNE
When the month of May ended with a gritty home win against Spokane, Portland was 3-2-4 in league play and overcoming injuries.
June has not been as kind. Portland entered Wednesday’s game on a four-game losing streak. Digging into the numbers, the skid looked even worse.
It was the first time the Hearts had lost four straight games in their brief year-and-a-half history. They were outscored 15-5 in that stretch, and 15-3 starting with the two extra-time goals they allowed in a 3-2 loss at Corpus Christi.
Portland had also lost three straight against USL League One games for the first time.
Two of the four losses were ugly 5-1 affairs. Portland didn’t lose by more than three goals and had just four losses by two or more goals in 2025.
RETURNS AND NOTES
Portland was glad to have Mikey Lopez back on the game-day roster. Lopez, who had bene out more than month because of an injury, entered as a 75th-minute sub with Portland leading 4-1. … Sean Vinberg, one of Portland’s primary starting center backs in 2025, became the second former Hearts player to return to Fitzpatrick, wearing the captain’s band for Richmond. Vinberg was released at the end of the 2025 season. He made 33 starts for Portland, second most on the team. … Maine Gatorade High School Soccer Players of the Year Finn Coburn (Scarborough) and Noelle Mallory (Cape Elizabeth) handled the honorary coin toss before the match.
A meal that would normally cost more than $30 is available for less than $12 at Governor’s Restaurants on Wednesday.
Governor’s is celebrating its 67th anniversary by offering its lobster roll for $11.67.
The annual promotion, known as Lobster Roll Day, begins when restaurants open at 8 a.m. and continues until supplies run out.
Governor’s operates six locations across Maine in Old Town, Bangor, Ellsworth, Waterville, Lewiston and Presque Isle.
Customers should be aware that several locations are offering cash-only drive-thru service for the event.
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