- Moose have exceptionally long legs, giving them easy access to browse.Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images
Moose are well-designed as browsing animals, and long legs are among their defining features. Moose may stand better than 6 feet at the shoulder, allowing them to access higher twigs, leaves and bark than any other native ungulate in their range. Their loftiness also allows them to wade easily into marshes and lakes to forage for aquatic plants. In winter, moose traverse deep snow areas too forbidding for elk or deer. The bulbous snouts of moose are equipped with rubbery, dexterous lips for stripping vegetation. - Moose in the Midwest and Northeast often browse birches.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
In the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, moose nibble on a variety of trees, from hardwoods like alders, maples, birches, cherries, willows and aspens, to conifers like Atlantic white-cedar, balsam fir, eastern hemlock and American yew. In the northern hardwood forests of the Upper Midwest, moose browse such conifers as balsam fir, white spruce, American yew and jack pine, as well as broad-leaved trees like quaking aspen, big-toothed aspen, yellow birch and paper birch. They especially favor disturbed ground in the woods created by fire or logging, where saplings of these species are developing. Balsam fir, aspens, red-osier dogwood, beaked hazel and willows are critical winter browse in this region. - Woody browse is particularly critical for moose in winter.Hemera Technologies/Photos.com/Getty Images
On the Yellowstone Plateau in the Northern Rockies of northwestern Wyoming, moose browse willows extensively, but are sometimes forced to higher country in winters of heavy low-elevation snow. In upper conifer forests they feed on subalpine fir and lodgepole pine. In Montana, moose browse willows and shrubs like red-osier dogwood, shifting more heavily to forbs and aquatic vegetation in summer. An introduced and thriving population in the Southern Rockies of Colorado targets aspen, willow and aquatic plants. - Willows, aspens, alders and poplars are important moose browse in Alaska and the Yukon.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
The heftiest moose subspecies in the world, the Alaskan moose, inhabits Alaska and parts of the Yukon. There, bulls may weigh 1,600 pounds, making them the largest deer on the planet. Birches, aspens, willows and poplars are important in this subarctic range. Moose readily seek out tracts recently burned in wildfire to forage in the jungle-like thickets that result. Eurasian moose similarly browse heavily. According to the University of Michigan's "Animal Diversity Web," a study in Poland showed Scots pine to be the most favored of food trees and shrubs by moose in that country.
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