An official with Saskatchewan Environment says it should be another good year for moose hunters.
Wildlife Biologist Rob Tether says numbers appear to be strong in the north and southern parts of the province.
Traditionally, the success rate for hunters is much higher in the southern grain belt that in the northern boreal forest, where the population is lower and spread out over a large area.
Tether says the weather has been one factor contributing to a healthy population.
“We had a reasonably mild winter — both north and south, and they can survive most temperatures, but came through this past winter doing very well, so I’m expecting that hunters this year are going to see as many moose as they did last fall.”
Tether says one positive result of the many fires in 2015 is that there should be plenty of food for the moose in the burned out areas.
“I don’t expect this year, but by 2017 and 2018, those areas actually will be very good for moose because of the nutritional value of the young saplings that will be growing in those fire areas.”
With the strong populations across the province, Tether says the season for licensed hunters had not been changed much this year.
“The zones and the season dates throughout the north and the south remain the same, we made some minor adjustments in quota for some of the limited draw in the south, some quotas went up where we thought the success was still quite high, and in a few places it may have dropped.”
The University of Saskatchewan has completed one study of moose in southern Saskatchewan and researchers are now doing an analysis of all of the data collected.
Additional information on what moose are doing in the southern farmland areas is expected to be released over the next two years.