A Study On The Winter Nutritional Carrying Capacity Of Moose(Alces Alces)

Based on the plant biomass availablity and the animal nutritional requirement for winter maintenance, the nutritional carrying capacity of winter range for moose (Alces alces) was estimated during 1999-2000 in Shengshan in Heihe, Heilongjiang. Available plant biomass supplied by environment was estimated based on the main food availability in moose winter habitat. According to previous research and investigation, moose main food in this area includes poplar, willow, birch and filbert. The nutritional requirement of moose for winter maintenance was determined based on the conventional digestion-metabolism trails a captive moose of zoo. Finally, we concluded that the nutritional requirements of the moose for maintenance during winter, dry matter (DM), metabolizable energy (ME) and nitrogen CN) were: 4.73kg/day, 17990kca1/day and 37.67glday respectively (the average weight of moose was estimated as 290-kg). The nutritional carrying capacity can be estimated based on dry matter, energy or nitrogen . We selected the metabolizable energy to reasonably estimate the moose winter nutritional carrying capacity, with the final results as: 76(0.0054/ha) in 1999 and 109(0.0078/ha) in 2000.