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News

  • Springtime Arrives with the Smallest of Signs

    Dave Anderson, Chris Martin, Emily Quirk
    March 5, 2021

    Take heart winter-weary friends. The first pulses of springtime arrive in the smallest of signs.

  • Acclaimed Cottrell-Baldwin Environmental Lecture Series Starts in March

    Anna Berry
    February 22, 2021

    The annual series has moved online this year, with experts exploring topics ranging from restoring wildlife habitat to foraging for edible native plants.

  • Cold is Cool Speaker Series Continues

    Anna Berry
    January 20, 2021

    Plug in to watch and learn from expert speakers and then unplug outside.

Moose favor aquatic plants in summer

Dave Anderson
August 25, 2020
Wildlife
A moose stands belly-deep in water of pickerel pond while eating water lillies on Thom Thomson's Orford NH Tree Farm
A young bull moose belly deep in Pickerel Pond while eating water lilies on Tom Thomson's Orford, NH, Tree Farm

It's been a HOT summer in New Hampshire. Statewde meteorologists track an average of 12 days of daytime high temperatures exceeding 90F degrees at the Concord, NH, weather reporting station. Summer of 2020 doubled that to 24 days of temperatures exceeding 90 degrees thus far. While people flocked to water in summer to cool off, for moose, wading is standard operating procedure each summer. Moose seek shallow lakes, ponds and wetlands where they feed on aquatic plants for the mineral sodium concentrated in these emergent and submerged plants.

A young bull moose with antlers barely visible in front of its erect ears and water lilly stem trailing from its mouth
Bull moose in Pickerel Pond. See antlers in front of ears?

Tom Thomson recently shared photos of a young bull moose grazing on aquatic bullhead pond lillies in Pickerel Pond on his Orford, NH, Tree Farm.

The summer aquatic plant diet of North American moose (Alces alces) is linked to the need to obtain sodium. Studies by wildlife biologists on the Copper River Delta in Alaska cite moose habitat preferences, seasonal diets, forage abundance and quality and population surveys indicating emergent plants in small shallow ponds are particularly important to moose populations.

While sodium is available in woody plant diet of leaves, twigs, and buds, the emergent or submerged aquatic plants produce an average of four times more nutrition than terrestrial plants. Aquatic plants are more digestible and have higher concentrations of minerals than woody forest browse more typical winter moose diet. The etymology of the word "moose" is from the Native Algonquin language and translates roughly to "twig eater." 

  • Learn more about the use of aquatic plants by moose a 2011 study.

Both male and female moose seek shallow aquatic habitat provided by wetlands and shallow ponds and edges of larger lakes to forage on super-nutritious aquatic vegetation. Beaver ponds are a particularly important landscape feature, providing sunny, open expanses of shallow water with mucky bottoms favored by these aquatic plants in an otherwise heavily forested landscape.  If you think about the frogs, turtles, spotted newts, wood ducks, hooded mergansers, wading great blue herons and moose that benefit from beaver-created wetlands, you'll understand why beavers are considered a keystone wildlife species creating and maintaining habitats for myriad other species of NH wildlife.

Moose with head submerged beneath the water to reach water lilly stems
Dunking for lilly plants

In NH, moose breed in October during the annual "rut." By early winter, moose migrate from ponds and shallow lakes located in river valleys moving uphill into young forests that provide ready access to the woody twigs and buds of sapling trees as well as the bark of understory trees. Forestry operations including sunny, open clearcuts and larger patch cuts are particularly imporant for providing winter moose habitat. Older, mature forest habitats with dense shade under closed canopy conditions do NOT provide moose access to sprouting stumps, young saplings and tender bark of younger trees - the preferred winter diet for moose.  Red maple and striped maple trees in particular are heavily favored as winter browse. Hikers often find parallel browsing "scrapes" made by the lower incisor teeth of moose in the bark of young trees in the forested settings where moose overwinter.

Winter moose scrapes from browsing young trees are distinctly different from more ragged antler "rubs" created by buck deer removing velvet from antlers and leaving territorial scent marks. Bull moose territorial scent marking during their October rut breeding season is accomplished with muddy, "moose muck" pits where male bulls and female cow moose wallow and urinate to leave territorial scent messages to attract mates.  Understanding moose seasonal habitat preferences can increase your own chances of glimpsing a moose from a safe distance when hiking in northern New Hampshire's forested landscape.

Thanks for these great moose photos, Tom!

Side view with best view of antlers in velvet on a young bull moose dripping water from neck as it eats tender aquatic water lillies
Refreshing place to find a nutritious dinner

 

 

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Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests54 Portsmouth St.Concord, NH 03301
Phone: 603.224.9945Fax: 603.228.0423info@forestsociety.org
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