ANTIGONISH – Recent sightings of a bull moose roaming around Antigonish town and county – one encounter captured on video by a motorist on Hwy.4 showing the animal bounding across a section of Old Highway 104 before heading into St. Ninian’s Parish Cemetery – have sparked plenty of conversation and concern. That includes a renewed call from an organization focused on the protection and preservation of the mainland moose and their natural habitats for improved safety measures along highways through the region.
“There were two reports of different moose in the Town of Antigonish in the same week, and the highway death nearby of one on Weavers Mountain, so residents are understandably concerned about the safety of both community members and endangered mainland moose,” Al Muir, president of the Moose Conservation Association of Nova Scotia (MCANS), said in an email conversation with The Journal.
He added, “While this level of activity has not been common in past years the only variable that has changed this year is the construction of the wind farm on Weavers Mountain.”
The Weavers Mountain Wind Energy Project, which is located on private land in Pictou and Antigonish counties – south of Hwy. 104 – will include 16 turbines and have a capacity of up to 94.4 megawatts.
The Antigonish area sightings came on the heels of the discovery of a dead bull moose that was struck by a motorist along Hwy. 104 in the Weavers Mountain area in late September.
“As you approach Weavers Mountain on the highway from New Glasgow, the fencing begins a short distance before the small community of Kenzieville before ending when the highway climbs the mountain. It begins again when the highway drops off the mountain on the Antigonish side, but the fencing is much longer on that side ending close to Antigonish. That would be why they [the moose] are crossing in the town itself because their attempts would be prevented by the fencing,” Muir explained in conversation with The Journal.
He added of the bull moose, “They would not move along the fencing until it ended, but rather they would return to the woods and move a distance before attempting again, eventually arriving at Antigonish. All this underlines the need for completed fencing with wildlife overpasses. If they were present in the initial highway [twinning] construction, the likelihood of an attempted crossing in the town would be significantly reduced.”
Noting that mainland moose are usually found at higher elevations, Muir said, “Their movements are increased in the rutting season, but the activity created by the wind turbine development on Weavers Mountain is disrupting their travel patterns pushing them out of the area and resulting in more attempts to cross the highway. The development is at the top of the mountain, pushing moose to the sides where the fencing is, but they cannot cross so they look for other options.”
He added, “The moose that was killed on the highway was reported attempting to cross three times over a few days in the Kenzieville area, where there is fencing to prevent crossings. After that, it moved up into the fencing gap on the mountain a few days later where it was struck. On the Antigonish side, the fencing is longer so it funnels these disrupted moose towards the Town of Antigonish where they can cross.”
Muir offered the uprooting of the moose from their habitat will “likely get worse” with the development of the Sugar Maple and Yellow Birch renewable energy projects slated for Pictou County, which he noted are planned for behind the Weavers Mountain initiative on that side of the twinned highway. “On the other side of the highway, the Eigg Mountain wind project and the proposed Glen Dhu 2 project will push moose from the other direction,” he added.
In a previous conversation with The Journal after the discovery of the dead bull moose, MCANS renewed its call to the provincial ministers of public works and natural resources to implement a wildlife toll at the station on the Cobequid Pass, explaining that the proposed $1 toll would be earmarked to help finance fencing and wildlife overpasses along key stretches of highway populated by the animals. The organization has identified the Weavers Mountain area as the location requiring “the most urgent necessary infrastructure additions.”
In an email response to a request for comment from natural resources and public works officials regarding the death of the bull moose, Gary Andrea – department spokesperson – wrote in an email: “The Department of Public Works has an ongoing organized effort, including a regular review of the Cobequid Pass area, to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions on Nova Scotia highways. This includes mitigation efforts and future planning, as well as collaboration with the Department of Natural Resources. We are also involved in working groups with other provinces to ensure the efforts fall within current best practices and evaluated methods of emerging national standards.”
A response to a follow-up request from The Journal for comment regarding the recent sightings in Antigonish was not received as of press time.
“Taken as a whole, this year’s extra activity is a warning that both carefully spaced wildlife highway overpasses and extended fencing in the current gap is necessary, and this situation will only get worse in the future as these other wind turbine sites are developed and alter moose habitat usage and travel patterns further,” Muir said.
“Along with that, the province needs to reconsider the disruptive effects all these planned major wind turbine developments will have on endangered mainland moose in the Pictou-Antigonish Highlands that they will totally blanket. That, and the heightened public safety risks these developments, will precipitate in the absence of these highway infrastructure improvements.”
