Time running out on moose permit lottery

If you’re one of the thousands hoping to win a coveted moose permit in the state’s annual lottery, here’s a warning: You’ve only got a week left to enter.

And if you don’t enter … your chances of going on a hunt of a lifetime aren’t that good.

Yeah, I suppose you could tag along with your buddies. Or I imagine one of those buddies might have listed you as their sub-permittee on their application.

But it just won’t be the same. And you know you want to hear your own name drawn when the lottery is held in Greenville on June 15.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is giving you until 11:59 p.m. on May 14 to apply via online — the deadline for paper applications is already past.

Maine residents will pay $15 for their one chance in the lottery — gone are the days when Mainers could purchase multiple “draws” — and those who’ve been loyal (but unsuccessful) participants will have a better shot at winning than those who are making their moose lottery debuts.

And due to a multiplier, the more years you’ve been participating, the more valuable those years become.

Figure: You get one extra chance in the lottery for each of the first five years that your name hasn’t popped out of the cyber-hopper, so long as you don’t opt out and stop entering. For the next five years (years six through 10), you receive two chances per year. For those who’ve been unsuccessful for even longer stretches, the multiplier awards three chances per year for year 11 through 15.

Simply put, an absolute newbie Maine resident will have just one chance in the lottery. An unsuccessful hunter who has been participating in the lottery for five years gets six chances (one they purchased, plus five for playing each year). Those with 10 consecutive years worth of tales of woe will have 16 chances in the drawing, and those who’ve bee playing for 15 years will have 31 chances.

Alas, that’s as far as the multiplier goes … for now: The state’s only counting back as far as 1998 when determining “bonus points.”

Next year, however, those who’ve been participating since 1998 and who have never had their names drawn will start earning 10 bonus points per year (for those years in excess of 15).

To enter this year’s lottery, click here.

 

 

John Holyoke

About John Holyoke

John Holyoke has been enjoying himself in Maine's great outdoors since he was a kid. Today, he's the Outdoors editor for the BDN, a job that allows him to meet up with Maine outdoors enthusiasts in their natural habitat. The stories he gathers provide fodder for his columns, and this blog.