In what’s been dubbed the moose sex project, more than 300 hectares of land has been donated to the Nature Conservancy of Canada to create a corridor of land between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that will allow moose in the two provinces to hook up.
For a decade or so, the Nova Scotian mainland moose population has been in decline due to threats such as disease, poaching, calf predation by black bears, and environmental factors.
According to The Canadian Press, the conservancy says it hopes the corridors give a route for the nearly 30,000 moose in New Brunswick to find mates in neighbouring Nova Scotia.
The land was previously privately owned by Derek Burney, a prominent businessman and former diplomat.
“I’m not an expert on moose sex or moose anything,” Burney told The Canadian Press. “I think the understanding is that if they can preserve the corridor with things like this…then I think there’s a good chance the Nova Scotia population will be replenished.”
And though the land is expected to be useful to other species as well, the conservancy’s main focus is on moose, which is an important food source for the Mi’kmaq First Nations people, who are indigenous to Canada’s Maritime Provinces.