Caribou, Deer, Elk & Moose - Sounds Wild
Moose Tooth Scrapes

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Moose Tooth Scrapes

On a summer day just outside of Fairbanks, a couple of hikers stop in an aspen grove to check out some strange scratches on a tree. About seven feet high on an aspen, a patch of bark the size of a license plate has been scraped away, revealing the brown wood beneath. Long, vertical grooves are scratched into the wood. One hiker explains how this happened - a moose did it last winter.

In late winter when food sources are lean, moose strip bark from trees like willow and aspen and eat it. Porcupines and beavers also eat tree bark. Although it's the inner bark, the cambium, that's the most nutritious part, moose eat everything they scrape. Moose scrape the bark off with their front teeth. Because moose only have lower front teeth, or incisors, they must scrape upward, digging deep scratches into the tree. In this patch of forest, the fresh scrapes from last winter show light brown wood underneath, and other trees show similar patches that have darkened to black with age.

Moose thrive on green summer vegetation like willow leaves, and nitrogen-rich plants that grow in water. In summer when fireweed is thick, a moose wouldn't even consider eating bark. They do employ a somewhat similar strategy with fireweed, running the stem through their mouth and stripping the leaves off with their teeth and tongue.