Moose cull in Cape Breton Highlands National Park to resume next month

Protests during last year's moose cull have not caused Parks Canada to reconsider another harvest this year in an area of boreal forest in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

The harvest, held outside the regular provincial hunting season, is designed to cut the moose population in a 20-square-kilometre area on North Mountain in hope the boreal forest there will regenerate.

It is conducted by Mi'kmaq hunters with the support of the Unama'ki Institute of Natural Resources.

Give trees a chance

Moose have been implicated in the failure of the forest to regenerate because they "browse" or graze on saplings before the trees have had a chance to gain any height.

Derek Quann, Parks Canada's manager of the boreal forest restoration project, said there is no annual survey of moose in the park, but the forest is monitored regularly.

"Our attention is focused on moose in the immediate, but really the long-term or the larger interest and concern here is with the state of the forest," Quann explained. "We engage in vegetation monitoring quite actively and bird, wildlife monitoring as well."

Protests threatened

The 2015 harvest was interrupted by protestors expressing a number of viewpoints. Some opposed the harvest on priniciple, unconvinced the moose population needed to be culled. Others were resentful that only Aboriginal hunters were allowed to take moose.

Parks Canada has done what it can in the last year to bring those people into the discussion about the forest project, Quann said.

"We remain interested in working on solutions and possibilities for engagement [and] involvement for those who are not involved directly in the harvest," he said.

'Options for engagement'

"Our commitment is with the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia, but we're certainly exploring options and opportunities for engagement in the current North Mountain project."

But if Quann believes there will be no protests during this season's harvest, Dennis Day says he's wrong.

Day belongs to the Friends of Cape Breton Moose. He said the group intends to block the Cabot Trail and pass out information flyers when the harvest resumes on North Mountain, likely in the first week of November.

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'There is just no need of it'

Day disagrees with scientific data that show approximately 1,800 moose in the national park.

"The moose just aren't here anymore" he said. "I have been travelling over North Mountain every day, in the morning at 5:30, coming home at dusk at night. I saw six moose all summer, since May."

Day said he does not want a confrontation, but vows not to give up on his effort to stop the cull.

"We've had harsh winters and lost so many moose. There is just no need of it anymore," he said.

Restoring balance

Hunters were told last year to try to take 90 per cent of the North Mountain moose population. That was estimated to be about 37 animals, the number of animals culled.

Clifford Paul, the Unama'ki Institute moose management consultant on the project, said harvesters could take just as many this season.

"It all depends on the number of the moose," he said, "because moose don't sit still to be counted. They move in and out of the park."

The harvest project will be run again next year, but Paul said it could be a long time yet before anyone knows whether it's worked.

"Nobody can make any predictions because this is something new," Paul said. "And this phenomenon has been happening a long time, with a high density of moose.

"We know in Gros Morne National Park [in Newfoundland], the natural succession of the forest regeneration has not occurred. We don't want to see this happen because you need a forest to support a population of moose and other members of the ecosystem."

The 2016 moose harvest is scheduled to begin in the first week of November and run as long as six weeks.