Maine’s annual moose permit lottery will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday as a virtual event for the second year in a row because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The drawing can be viewed live on the state Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife’s YouTube channel, and a searchable database will be on SunJournal.com by 6 p.m. Saturday.

This year, 72,039 applications were received for 3,480 permits in the fall hunt, according to IFW communications director Mark Latti. Of those, 550 permits designated for a new adaptive hunt in a northwestern Maine. The hunt is part of state biologists’ effort to try to determine if fewer moose will lead to a decrease in winter tick infestations.

The adaptive hunt will allocate only cow permits and hunters will be required to attend an in-person or virtual one-hour seminar on the hunt. The special hunt will take place the first and second week of October and the third week of November.