One of the biggest potential single sources of carbon emissions from wooded parts of Norway has four legs, weighs as much as 400-550 kg and has antlers.

That’s right — moose can reduce carbon storage in clearcut sites equivalent to as much as 60 per cent of the annual fossil fuel carbon emissions from a region, a new study shows.

“Moose are an ecosystem engineer in the forest ecosystem, and strongly impact everything from the species composition and nutrient availability in the forest,” said Gunnar Austrheim, an ecologist at the NTNU University Museum who was one of the study’s co-authors. “A grown animal can eat 50 kilograms of biomass each day during summer.”

That consumption represents roughly 10 per cent of what the Norwegian forest industry itself harvests, he said.

Read more at: Norwegian University of Science and Technology

This big boy can be responsible for huge amounts of carbon emissions, simply by eating young vegetation that sprouts after a clearcut and that if left alone, would grow up and store carbon. (Photo Credit: Endre Grüner Ofstad)

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