The influence of winter aggregations of moose on browsing in the Acadian Forest

Authors

  • Stéphanie Landry University of Maine in Fort Kent (UMFK)

Keywords:

moose, browse, hardwood regeneration

Abstract

Moose population density in northwestern New Brunswick is the highest in the province, and moose browsing damage have been detected. In this study, we assessed the influence of the number of moose estimated during winter at the landscape scale on browsing of both commercial and non-commercial tree. Mean number of moose estimated during winter in a 3 km radius buffer is associated with both a greater occurrence and a higher intensity of moose browsing on the regeneration stratum. We recommend avoiding the aggregation of cutblocks to decrease attraction by moose during winter, and thus decreasing browsing pressure both locally and in the surrounding landscape.

Author Biography

Stéphanie Landry, University of Maine in Fort Kent (UMFK)

Stéphanie Landry is an instructor of forestry at the University of Maine in Fort Kent (UMFK). She is currently Ph.D. candidate in biology at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. She is conducting a study on forest regeneration characterization from remote sensing tools such as satellite images and LiDAR. She has a master’s in environment from the Université de Sherbrooke and a bachelor’s in biology from the Université de Moncton. She has approximately 10 years of experience in applied forestry research and her areas of expertise are GIS, remote sensing, forest ecology and landscape ecology.  

Published

2023-10-31

Conference Proceedings Volume

2023: Leveraging Technology to Improve Silviculture and the Digitalization of the Value Chain

Section

Proceedings