Government Inaction Threatens Rare White Moose

Toronto Star ^ | July 24, 2005 | Cameron Smith

[Loyalist]

Rare white moose near Foleyet, midway between Chapleau and Timmins, are being shot by trophy hunters, and the Ontario government won't lift a finger to protect them.

Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay says there's no need to.

"There are no indications that moose hunting has reduced the genetic capability of moose in the area to produce white moose offspring," he wrote in a letter last year rejecting a request for protection.

However, in the same letter Ramsay said: "It is also of interest to note that the majority of documented observations are (of) female (moose)."

This is hardly surprising, since it is the males, the bull moose with huge antlers, that hunters want.

For about 40 years, local residents say there has been a small group of white moose in the area, numbering at times as few as five. This year, there have been 16 sightings within eight kilometres from each side of the Groundhog River, which crosses the highway about 30 kilometres east of Foleyet.

These are not albino moose. As Ramsay says in his letter, "our best understanding is that white moose are a natural but rare colour phase of existing and described moose subspecies."

Trains are as great a threat to the moose as hunters, says Timmins naturalist Laurent Robichaud, especially during winter when, to escape wolves, they take to the railway tracks that parallel the highway between the river and Foleyet.

However, threatened as the moose are, there's no easy way to decide whether they should be protected. The independent committee that advises the federal government has ruled against designating white moose as a species at risk.

"Biological conservation should protect genetic diversity," it said last October, "but (the committee) cannot be expected to preserve all known diversity. ... (T)here are likely hundreds of thousands of similar genetic differences that result in less visible effects. Protection of only a specific (example of genetic difference) within a population may also result in artificial selection."

In other words, if the white moose are protected, they may breed to the point that they are over-represented in the population.

But look at the other side of that coin. White moose are the ones most sought by trophy hunters, and if hunting is not banned, their numbers may be artificially reduced. In that case, wouldn't we have artificial selection in reverse? In other words, their numbers may be depressed well below what otherwise would be normal. And, eventually, they may be eliminated.

There are also white moose on the Port au Port Peninsula in Newfoundland. In 2002, the provincial government banned hunting any moose "that are predominantly white in colour." I haven't heard that Port au Port Peninsula is now overrun with white moose.

In Northern Ontario, there is growing agitation to impose a 10-year ban on hunting — a period long enough to allow for research that has not yet been done.

A website at http://www.whitemoose.ca< gives more details. It was established by Joel Theriault, a local bush pilot, law student and hunting enthusiast, who has proposed capturing the moose and placing them in protected enclaves. However, I think that would interfere too dramatically with natural selection.

It strikes me as odd that Ramsay is stonewalling on a 10-year ban. There seems little to fear. The number of moose is small, the time period is short, and we need to know more about these animals, instead of turning them over to trophy hunters.

[johnny7]

Someone will have to shoot it anyway... when some crazy Canuck slams into it.

[goldfinch]

A ten year ban seems reasonable to me.

[martin_fierro]

Me & my White Moose diorama.

[Born to Conserve]

The local park had a large population of whitetails of large size and with very large eight point racks -- 30"+ typical. There was no hunting since the farmers quit farming the surrounding area. Then they opened the park to controlled hunting of females only, because culling females is the most efficient method of culling. Funny thing; over the next fifteen years the population's rack size shrank. Now you are lucky to see a six pointer more than 15".

The hunters have been poaching the bucks and have selectively killed of the ones with large racks.

I've heard that the indian elephants are loosing their tusks from similar poaching pressure.

I'm all for hunting (just check my freezer!), but trophy hunting is just plain selfish.

[Professional Engineer]

Moose
Cheese
Whine

The story just needs a sister and it'll belong to FReeper history!

[Mike Darancette]

My word, the Greenies want to preserve birth defects now.

[dighton]

Is also needing sqvirrel.

[Mogger]

Me & my White Moose diorama

Is that the one at L.L. Cote's in Errol, NH?

[NerdDad]

Mrs. NerdDad just asked who the mouth-breathin redneck in the Mississippi t-shirt is.

Being from Mississippi she is allowed to ask. Probably thinks it's a cousin or something.

[Brilliant]

which one is the "White Moose?"