With their shocking stature and loud calls, it\u2019s no surprise that people are fascinated by moose and all the finer details of their existence, including what moose eat. They are a popular game species for serious hunters in northern reaches of North America and Eurasia. They produce hundreds of pounds of meat that can sustain a family through the whole year. (If you\u2019re interested in learning how to hunt moose<\/a>, read our guide.) So whether you\u2019re interested in just seeing moose from a distance or getting close and harvesting one, a good first question to ask is \u201cwhat do moose eat?\u201d<\/p>\n As is the case with any other wildlife species with a wide geographic distribution, a moose\u2019s diet depends greatly on where they live and what forage species are available to them. Their diets also change with the seasons, since most of their range sees such broad shifts in climate throughout the year.<\/p>\n No matter where they live or what time of year it is, moose require a lot of food. If you\u2019ve ever tried to fathom how big a moose is<\/a>, know first that a healthy adult moose can eat 40 to 60 pounds<\/a> of food a day, or roughly 16,000 calories<\/a>, when it\u2019s available. Seeing as how an adult bull moose can weigh up to 1,600 pounds and stand 6 feet tall at the shoulder, it makes sense that they\u2019d need so much sustenance. But where does all that food come from?<\/p>\n Despite how difficult it is to nail down a generic answer to \u201cwhat do moose eat,\u201d Dr. Steve Windels, an award-winning<\/a> moose biologist at Voyageurs National Park<\/a>, provided a preliminary list of food sources that moose seem to gravitate toward. They include:<\/p>\n As the largest member of the Cervidae family (which includes deer and elk, among other species), moose diets are shockingly similar to deer diets, just at a much higher volume. The leaves, buds, and twigs on the ends of tree branches\u2014what habitat managers call \u201cwoody browse\u201d\u2014comprises most of what a moose eats. But these big critters also eat a lot of nutrient-dense aquatic vegetation and even crops on occasion, Windels says.<\/p>\n He describes moose as a \u201ccircumboreal species,\u201d which means moose live throughout the northernmost circumference of the planet in Alaska, Canada, and northern Eurasia. Their range extends down into the northernmost states in the U.S., the Rocky Mountains, and southern New England. This wide range means moose in different parts of the world eat different kinds of plants.<\/p>\n \u201cMoose are generalist herbivores, so they eat a wide variety of stuff, but it varies from location to location based in large part on what\u2019s available,\u201d Windels tells Outdoor Life<\/em>. \u201cHere in northern Minnesota they\u2019re eating a lot of deciduous twigs and leaves, like aspen, birch, willows, dogwoods, and shrubby plants. If you go somewhere like Scandinavia, they eat a lot of conifers.\u201d<\/p>\n Moose from Maine to Alaska rely on birches, aspens, and willows. They also browse on maple, pin cherry, and mountain ash trees in the Northeast<\/a>. In British Columbia<\/a>, they eat highbush cranberries, false boxwood, and some subalpine fir trees. If you go somewhere in Scandinavia like Sweden<\/a>, you\u2019ll see moose chewing on pine trees, as well as bilberry and lingonberry shrubs. (Bilberries are practically interchangeable with blueberries and huckleberries, and lingonberries are also known as mountain cranberries or cowberries.)<\/p>\n One of the most important components of what moose eat is found underwater. Aquatic vegetation supplies moose with much of their requisite sodium and other minerals, Wendels says. Pondweed, pond lilies, horsetail, and burweed are all popular across their North American distribution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moose have been known to dive well over a dozen feet deep to get this food, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports<\/a>. Their nostrils are adapted to act as valves that can shut water out while they dunk their long, sloping heads to grab at plants.<\/p>\nA Moose\u2019s Favorite Food Sources<\/h2>\n
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Aquatic Vegetation<\/h3>\n