This story was originally published in June 2019.
Adults weren’t the only ones having fun at the 2019 Maine Moose Permit Lottery.
Several kids tried their hand at moose calling prior to the announcement of the lottery results at Cabela’s in Scarborough.
Master of ceremonies Roger Lambert brought the competitors on stage and urged them on in front of the crowd. Each participant got a thorough applause from the delighted onlookers.
One participant went one step further, and demonstrated his turkey call for those in attendance.
“This young man is so good at turkey calling, he’s been banned from all the competitions, he really has,” Lambert said.
“But even though this is a moose calling contest, would anyone here [mind] if we heard his turkey call?” he asked the crowd.
[Here are 6 of our favorite moose videos from over the years]
More than 500 people gathered under a large tent at Cabela’s for the 2019 lottery.
In 2019, a total of 59,185 prospective hunters applied for 2,820 available permits. The odds weren’t in their favor: Maine residents had a 1 in 81 shot at winning for each chance they had purchased or accrued in the lottery’s “preference points” system. Non-residents had just a 1 in 1,217 shot per chance.
In 2022, there are nearly 70,000 people vying for an opportunity to snag one of the 4,080 permits that will be awarded this year.
BDN Outdoors writer John Holyoke filmed the video and contributed to this report. BDN writer Leela Stockley contributed to this report.
