Variation in Growth Pattern of Male Moose<i>Alces alces</i>After Two Contrasted Periods of Hunting

Abstract

Exploitation by humans impacts wildlife in many ways. Selective harvesting regimes affect demography of the remaining population, and increased mortality shortens life expectancy affecting optimal life-history strategies. We studied this in a Finnish moose (Alces alces) population using harvest data on age, carcass weight, antler spread and tine number, and compared the growth in body weight and that of antlers in male moose after adult-biased and mixed age class harvesting. According to our results, both body weight and antler growth of young males increased after mixed age class harvesting. Changes in growth patterns were affected by population density and sex ratio, but as the period effect still remained in the growth patterns after removing the effects of density and sex ratio, we suggest that the change in male moose growth patterns might have resulted from the harvest-induced young-male age structure and higher harvest pressure among young male moose.