♪ With more than 4.7 million acres of forest, New Hampshire is home to an abundant array of wildlife.

Few are more beloved or more mysterious than the moose.

♪ Some people like cats or dogs.

Moose are probably my favorite subject.

Something about them.

They're big and awkward.

You know, they can figure you out.

They grab the attention of many people and what it is?

Is it their size?

Is it kind of their somewhat, you know, abnormal appearance, or is it that they maybe represent something, a wild landscape?

People enjoy seeing moose.

They enjoy hunting and eating moose.

And then there's other people that are just they want to know that they're out there and that they are part of the functioning ecosystem.

♪ For decades, Roger Irwin has photographed moose and other wildlife throughout New Hampshire.

I was dairy farming and one year I was able to afford a camera with a 300 millimeter lens.

Get out early in the morning and I'd get up to milk cows.

It 3:00 and get the chores done and get the milking done, and then be able to be out in the fall so that I could start hiking a little after daybreak.

And that was probably 25, 30, 30 years ago, maybe there were a lot of moose then and it was much easier than it is now.

When I was younger, we used to go out when I was in my teens, being up here from the North Country.

We'd go out looking for moose in the evening, friends that, you know, me and some friends and, we used to see quite a bit of them, and I just thought that'd be a fun and safer way of getting people out there to see them.

I was also on the EMS for years prior, a few years prior to starting the business in 99.

And, unfortunately, I seen a few motor vehicle accidents with moose and people.

So I figured, you know, if we can get them, on a bus a little safer and, get out there and educate them on the, you know, on the moose, and you know how to view them safely.

Moose of my favorite.

Love to get out and look for them and try to call them in.

(Moose calls) I used to be able to call in up to 12 moose in a day, and nowadays, I'm lucky if I can get one to come in in a week.

New Hampshire's moose population has gone through rapid increase and decrease over the last 50 years.

From about 2000 to current population has been stable and declining, and it's declined about 50% since 2000.

It was about 7500 moose statewide in 2000, and now it's about 3000.

Numbers are getting less and less through the ticks we're having, you know, just warmer winters.

And the ticks are thriving more and they're devastating the moose population.

So the major threats towards moose, the first one is loss of quality and quantity, habitat, winter tick parasitism and brain worm parasitism.

Most whitetail deer have brain worm.

It's a worm that sits along the outer edge of their brain and the meninges.

When moose become infected, they develop neurological impairment and die.

And so when there are more deer, and moose and deer habitat overlap, brain worm in moose increases and you can see a long term decline in moose population.

Shorter winters brought on by climate change mean more challenges for moose.

Traditionally, in New Hampshire, whitetail deer were limited by severe winter conditions are one of the limiting factors for them.

With climate change, those conditions are now occurring less frequently and less likely to occur in the future, and winter tick abundance on the landscape is due to your moose density.

How many moose are there per unit area?

And then it's also associated with the length of winter conditions.

The longer it takes for lasting snow cover to arrive.

That gives winter takes more time to search for a host and to get on a host.

Despite declining numbers, moose remain a cultural icon of the state.

Viewing and hunting provides economic revenue for rural local economies, and there's much moose related memorabilia for tourists.

A moose is on the state conservation license plates.

I know that Fish and Game has cut down the hunt tremendously.

They think it's at a perfect number right now, so as long as we have some cold or snowier winters in the future, I think that'll help with the ticks.

And, you know, keep our, population right about where we are now hopefully.

It's often counterintuitive to people to think that it could be okay to hunt a declining species, actually to help them.

But it is that density relationship so regulated hunting of moose can be used to try to keep the population lower to moderate moose density, which results in lower tick abundance and healthier moose that are therefore more productive.

They say there's half as many moose.

I think it's more like a quarter or even less unless they're all hiding now.

But the antlers aren't out there like they used to be, and the moose aren't there like they used to be.

Like I said, I've called in a dozen in one day.

So that's a big difference between what I could call in and now.

Now we still see, you know, we'll average it all depends, you know, 4 or 5 a night, 6 a night.

But back in the, in the days, we could average eight, ten a night throughout the summer.

So people remember 20 years ago when there were quite a lot of moose, and that number of moose on the landscape is just not normal for what you see across moose range.

The moose decline in New Hampshire is partly due to habitat, partly due to climate change and parasitism and it's also partly due to we're just getting back to figuring out like what is kind of more normal for the New Hampshire's moose population.

They're just intriguing.

They're gentle giants.

They're, they're just beautiful to view.

And Eric and I, my tour guide to this day, we still get very excited when we see the moose out there along with everyone on the bus, also.

But they're just, they're a majestic animal.

♪