By Rosemary Counter, April 10, 2017

A narrow strip of land connecting Nova Scotia to New Brunswick is a lifeline for maritime moose in the mood to mate—and it’s under threat


The Chignecto Isthmus, connecting the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, is a vital piece of land which requires special conservation measures.

The Chignecto Isthmus—the corridor connecting New Brunswick to Nova Scotia that at its narrowest is just 24 km wide—poses a uniquely Canadian problem. On one side of the land bridge thrives a healthy population of more than 25,000 moose; on the other, numbers have dwindled to as few as 500. Long classified as endangered, the Nova Scotia moose is perilously close to extinction.

Paula Noel, New Brunswick program manager at the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) explains the corridor is increasingly a pinch-point for travelling wildlife: if the expansion of roadways and housing developments in the area continues, says Noel, “we’re going to have problems.”

In that event, she warns, Nova Scotia will become “almost an island, with less wildlife diversity and genetic variation.” This presents a larger problem: “Isolation is a big deal,” says Joe Nocera, assistant professor of wildlife ecology at the University of New Brunswick. “There’s not enough connectivity between populations and zero potential to share genes.” Inbred moose, for example, have lower-than-normal birth rates and body masses, leading to further decline in populations.

This spring, the NCC procured three new properties totalling 95 hectares as part of an ongoing campaign to create a haven of protected forests and wetlands on the isthmus. Their running total now stands at more than 1,200 hectares. Yet from the outset, their efforts seemed plagued by mixed messages. Even now, for example, you can hunt moose on the New Brunswick side of the isthmus, but not in Nova Scotia.

How, then, can they impress the urgency of the situation on the public?

The answer lay not in science, but in branding. Cheeky NCC office workers had dubbed the narrow strip, officially necessary for genetic variability, the “moose-sex corridor”—an inside joke that stuck. Though already a few years old, the clever moniker garnered unforeseen national attention.

“Moose getting their own corridor of land for sex,” said the Toronto Star, while Halifax’s Chronicle-Herald encouraged readers donate to “help moose have more sex at Christmas.” Such silliness is all just fine by the NCC.

“We know when we start talking like I am, like a biologist, people tune out,” says Noel. “They want to hear about the sex.”

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Well, isthmus landowner Mike Spence’s woodlot sounds about right: “It’s boggy, with cranberries and fresh water and tall trees,” says the 58-year-old logger. Since he first bought land there at 15, Spence has acquired about 250 hectares straddling the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border—including a 28-hectare spot parallel to the Trans-Canada Highway that’s too far (an hour on horseback) and swampy (due to climate change) for logging. Spence hasn’t harvested there for a quarter-century, but doesn’t want it bought up and clear-cut either. So a sale to the NCC made a satisfying, if not lucrative, deal. “I could have sold it for twice as much,” says Spence, “but I’m not into money. I’d rather the moose.” He then digresses into a story about moose in his backyard, taking down the clothesline and scattering clothes across 20 acres.

East Coast characters like Spence inspired Ben Phillips, a Mount Allison University lab instructor and filmmaker who’d been following the NCC’s previous publicity problem, to grab his camera and get creative. “Who wants to watch an educational film about wildlife connectivity? They make those already and nobody watches except those already converted,” he says. “We want to talk to everyone else.” The Enlightened Redneck’s Guide to Moose Sex is set to premiere this month.

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http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/n...e-sex-corridor/