Field Notes Friday: Striped Maple and Moose
This week Jason Berard, Vice President of Stewardship, was out in Topsham, VT where he found a young striped maple tree (Acer pensylvanicum) that a moose had enjoyed a small meal. Especially in the winter, striped maple bark is a main food source for moose. They use their lower incisors to scrape up the tree and remove strips of bark as you can see in the video. Moose scrapings can be found starting as low as ten inches from the ground and can extend as high as eight feet (most likely from the winter when moose are standing on the snow packed ground).