Supplemental feeding of migratory moose Alces alces: forest damage at two spatial scales

Summary

Landowners in southeast Norway have supplied moose Alces alces with ensilaged bales of hay for up to eight winters. The incentive has been to limit migratory movements into heavily trafficated winter areas and away from young forest plantations. In this article, we report on landscape characteristicsthat increase the use of feeding stations, and on how browsing activity on Scots pine Pinus sylvestris twigs as well as leader stems of both pine and Norway spruce Picea abies was associated with distance to feeding stations at two different spatial scales: 1) at a local scale we sampled data from 50 m2observational plots up to 200 m from the feeding stations, and 2) at a regional scale we sampled data at all available young forest plantations up to 7 km from a feeding station. The probability that a feeding station was used increased towardsthe bottom of side valleys. The frequency of use of feeding stations increased annually, with increasing distance to other feeding stations, and with increasingdistance to the more populated main valley. Moose-induced browse damage was extensive at proximate distances (< 200 m) to feeding stations, decreased to a minimum at 1-2 km, and increased slightly again at3-7 km distance from less intensely used feeding stations. Indices of moose activity distribution (i.e. piles of faecal pellets) resembled browsing activity.