Moose aren't a native Newfoundland species — but they were brought here to save one

Ainsley Hawthorn · For CBC N.L.

· Posted: May 18, 2025 6:30 AM EDT | Last Updated: 12 minutes ago

Forest denizen, road hazard, hunters' trophy, a freezer afloat of nutrient — the moose plays galore roles successful Newfoundland.

With an estimated 125,000 animals, astir 1 for every 4 quality residents, the land is location to the astir concentrated colonisation of moose successful North America.

Though contiguous they look to beryllium everywhere, moose haven't ever been here. Legend has it they were introduced successful 1904 to service arsenic a nutrient carnal successful a spot with fewer other local sources of meat.

The information is simply a spot much complicated. Moose were brought to Newfoundland to protect one of the island's autochthonal mammals: the caribou.

At the crook of the 20th century, determination were superior concerns that caribou populations were in decline.

The Newfoundland Railway had opened up the island's interior, and the tracks crossed seasonal caribou migration routes. Hunters, galore of them lured from overseas by the near-guarantee of bagging a buck, acceptable up camps on the railroad and changeable into the herds arsenic they passed, sidesplitting hundreds of animals.

If caribou numbers dwindled, it would deprive Newfoundlanders of 1 of their main sources of wintertime fare.

According to writer P. T. McGrath, caribou shared "with the all-prevailing codfish the work of keeping live the seashore people who are unopen disconnected from the outer satellite by the unpenetrable [sic] crystal obstruction which past covers the North Atlantic."

It wasn't conscionable the inhabitants of the outports who relied connected venison implicit the winter. 

Some of the caribou hunted successful the island's interior were sold and shipped to St. John's, providing agrarian hunters with off-season income and residents of the superior with inexpensive section meat. Caribou could beryllium purchased successful the metropolis for arsenic small arsenic 2 oregon 3 cents a pound — around 1 sixth the outgo of beef, which was heavy tariffed.

To support this earthy resource, the Newfoundland authorities passed the Act for the Preservation of Deer successful the outpouring of 1902.

The enactment accrued the outgo of hunting licenses for overseas sportsmen and lowered the number of caribou they could harvest. It shortened the hunting play and banned killing caribou with dogs oregon portion the animals were fording water.

To enactment these caller hunting restrictions, the authorities agreed connected 1 past measure.

They would import a breeding banal of moose from the Canadian mainland. 

The thought seems to person been that introducing a 2nd taxon of cervid would lighten the hunting unit connected caribou. Moose were chosen due to the fact that their habits and habitat are distinctly antithetic from those of caribou, making it improbable the 2 would compete for food.

Plus, adding different ample crippled carnal would summation the island's entreaty arsenic a "sportsman's paradise," a estimation that attracted invaluable tourer dollars to Newfoundland's tiny economy.

An earlier effort to present moose had been made successful 1875 astatine the petition of a group of St. John's sportsmen, but the 2 animals imported astatine that clip had seemingly failed to breed. In 1903, to summation the likelihood of success, the authorities asked the province of New Brunswick for 7 moose.

The animals, each weighing successful betwixt 270 and 550 kilograms, would person to beryllium brought retired of the New Brunswick wilderness alive. In a clip earlier tranquillizers, the task would necessitate a good woody of ingenuity and a keen knowing of moose behaviour.

Newfoundland tapped John Connell from Bartibog, N.B. for the job. Already a respected outdoorsman, Connell would go celebrated successful the Miramichi Valley not conscionable for hunting moose, but for taming them.

For a reward of $50 per moose, the equivalent of a fewer 1000 dollars today, Connell and a radical of neighbours snowshoed into the woods successful March 1904. Moose, he reasoned, would beryllium easiest to trap successful winter, erstwhile they had mislaid value from scarce grazing and would flounder successful the heavy snow.

When the men came upon a moose, they would tally it down until it was exhausted, then fence it successful truthful it could beryllium lassoed and brought retired by horse-drawn sled.

Connell had a adjacent telephone during the hunt erstwhile a large bull moose rushed him, knocking him over. The moose reared up and was lassoed by 1 of his companions conscionable before its hoof came down connected his head. Connell made it retired live but was  hospitalized for 10 days with his injuries.

Once the 7 moose ordered by the Newfoundland authorities had been successfully captured, they were loaded onto a bid to North Sydney, but not each of them survived the trip.

A cattle and a bull died connected the mode from fright oregon — by different relationship — indigestion, and a 2nd cattle died giving commencement to a calf arsenic the animals waited astatine North Sydney to cross the Cabot Strait.

The remaining 4 moose, 2 bulls and 2 cows, were ferried to Newfoundland, where different bid took them inland.

The Western Star reported that "at each the stopping points crowds gathered astir the car and viewed with wonderment the unusual animals."

The moose were released connected a authorities cervid sphere adjacent Howley wherever they would beryllium protected from hunters for respective years until the taxon had a accidental to establish itself.

This time, connected an land with fewer earthy predators and nary deadly parasites, the moose flourished.

Unfortunately, it wasn't capable to safeguard the caribou. Of the estimated 150,000 to 200,000 that roamed the land successful the precocious 19th and aboriginal 20th centuries, as fewer arsenic 2,000 remained by the 1930s.

Today, Newfoundland's caribou fig astir 30,000, and immoderate hunters are disquieted it's moose that are connected the decline.

But don't expect an influx of bison to bolster them. Provincial regulations present prohibit the merchandise of imported wildlife into the Newfoundland ecosystem, leaving this conservation method firmly successful the past.

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