What Do Moose Eat?

A name can hold a lot of meaning, but in the case of the moose, its name hides the secret behind its diet. The word “moose” comes from the Algonquin language and translates into English as “eater of twigs.” It’s a fitting description for an herbivore. Let’s take a deeper look at the diets of these giant creatures to discover just what moose eat!

What Do Moose Eat?

Moose are generalist herbivores that eat bark, grasses, leaves, and shrubs. In summer months, they eat mostly aquatic plants, deciduous leaves, herbaceous plants, and grasses. As food supplies dwindle during the winter, they’ll consume more twigs, shrubs, and needles. These winter food sources aren’t nearly as nutritious as what moose eat during the summer, but surviving in Northern climates through the winter requires adaptations.

Large bodies of water are also a necessity for most moose. Because moose experience sodium deficiencies in winter, they need to ingest a lot of sodium during the more verdant months. The vegetation found in lakes, ponds, and rivers is packed with high salt levels, helping them meet this need.

Here are some of the foods moose eat:

• Willow
• Birch
• Aspen
• Maple
• Pin cherry
• Mountain ash
• Balsam poplar
• Herbaceous plants like dandelions
• Grasses
• Pine needles
• Pine cones
• Bush cranberries
• Water lilies
• Pondweed
• Burweed
• Lichens
• Mushrooms

Moose Adaptations

To accommodate the steep nutritional requirements of the world’s largest deer species, the moose has evolved a highly efficient digestive system. Like a cow, a moose has a four-chambered stomach that allows it to regurgitate partially digested food and then chew this cud to extract every possible ounce of nutrition.

Before winter, moose bulk up in a manner similar to bats and squirrels, accumulating fat reserves to sustain themselves during the leaner months. The average moose will increase its weight by a quarter to prepare for the winter. As leaves, grasses, and herbaceous plants wither and die, moose are left to rely on more nutritionally barren twigs and pine needles to survive.

The available food in winter often yields only a third of the nutritional value of equivalent food in the spring and summer. So, they often have to determine whether foraging will expend more energy than they can recover through their meal. This is where that added fat is especially advantageous. Fortunately, moose have also developed a highly insulated coat that helps regulate their body temperatures and minimize their energy usage.

How Do Moose Forage?

The average moose weighs between 800 and 1,600 pounds and can eat 40 to 60 pounds of vegetation in a single day. They can spend as much as eight hours a day gathering enough food to satisfy their appetite.

A typical moose’s diet might include food foraged from as many as 20 different types of trees and shrubs, but studies on the droppings of moose revealed that they’re highly selective about what food sources they prioritize. Moose will typically prioritize plant sources that are rarer in their habitat — a curious habit that suggests moose seek general nutritional diversity rather than focusing on one particular plant. It’s also been hypothesized that a diverse diet reduces the risk of eating toxic plants in lethal doses.

The average moose stands between five and 6.5 feet tall and feeds on the bark, twigs, and leaves of trees because it has difficulty leaning over to reach the grass at its hooves. A moose’s lips are incredibly delicate tools crafted to suit its dining habits. Their prehensile nature is designed for stripping bark, reaching high branches, and even evaluating the age of tree shoots. Moose will often graze for plants in shallow waters, but sometimes reaching the most nutritious food sources means diving as deep as 18 feet. Their uniquely oversized noses can close off the nostrils, preventing water from entering while the moose feeds entirely underwater.