Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) disease in cervids, including deer and moose. Other TSEs you may already know are Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, mad cow in bovines, and scrapie in sheep. TSEs are fatal diseases that effect the nervous system. Visible symptoms of CWD include excessive drooling, thirst, and urination, teeth grinding, drooping ears, unusual behavior, sluggish behavior, and emaciation.

[caption id="attachment_905" align="alignleft" width="225"] Snowy egrets perched in apple trees.[/caption] This past May, I had the unique opportunity to assist National A

Fall is just around the corner and IFW’s wildlife and fisheries biologists and hatchery personnel are rushing around preparing for the coming cool weather and all of the hunting, fishing, and fish stocking that come with it! For wildlife biologists, this means monitoring the black bear harvest, which is currently in full swing, and preparing themselves and the many tagging stations statewide for the inevitable rush of moose and deer and turkeys that will be coming in!

The morning of August 24^th rolled into Brownfield with blue skies, a few clouds, and only occasional wisps of wind; it was a perfect morning for setting the woods on fire in IFW’s Brownfield Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The Maine Forest Service, the USDA Forest Service, IFW, The Nature Conservancy, NOAA, and the Maine Army National Guard all congregated for the prescribed burn.

Historically, Maine has been the premier moose hunting and viewing destination in the lower 48 states. Along with a healthy moose population comes the task of managing it at levels that are socially acceptable; this can be done effectively only if you know how many animals you have in the population. However, this objective is often significantly more difficult than you might think. There are a variety of methods that could be used to count individuals; most have been employed by Maine IFW biologists at some point to determine our beloved moose population.