N.L. national parks aiming for safe moose hunt

National park officials saythey're taking steps to ensure Terra Nova and Gros Morne parks are safe when moose hunting begins within their boundaries for the first time this fall.

Officials hope to keep hunters and other visitors apart.

"We spent a great deal of time and effort and very carefully picked the area [where hunting will take place]," said Tom Knight, an ecosystem scientist at Gros Morne National Park.

"These areas avoid park infrastructure. There areno trails affected in one area and in a second area there isone trail that will be influenced and that trail will be closed to visitors."

Moose hunting is set to beginin Gros Morne and Terra Novaparkson Oct.11, becausefewertourists visitthe parks after Thanksgiving. The moose hunting season in the parks is scheduled to end Jan. 8, 2012.

Moose destroying habitats

Earlier this year, Parks Canada said it was forced to allow hunting in the parks which is forbidden in many other national parks - because moose are destroying habitats that other species need.

"More and more you can see areas not just small forest stands or individual, small clumps of trees but huge landscapes - that are starting to be essentially denuded of mature forest," Peter Deering, a conservation manager at Gros Morne National Park, said last spring.

"Bird communities will change. Small mammal communities will change. Even species of other shrubs and forest plants that grow on the forest floor will change," he said.

'Huge landscapesessentially denuded of mature forest.' Peter Deering, park official

Parks Canada tracked the health of its forests for years before making the decision.

"[Moose] numbers have increased spectacularly since [introduction in the early 20th century] because they lack a primary predator, there are no common moose diseases here, and the boreal forest provides an ideal habitat," Parks Canada said in a statement.

Parks Canada said similar measures have successfully been taken involving deer in protected areas in Ontario and B.C.

The move is not a surprise. In its own literature distributed to park patrons in recent years, Parks Canada has warned of moose overpopulation and its effects on habitat.

In 2010, the Crown agency said a cull was in the works. As many as 150,000 moose have been estimated to live on the Island of Newfoundland, with about 5,000 moose believed to be in Gros Morne Park alone.