Models by Sex and Age
Male, female, and young moose selected different habitat features at
different scales. Male moose selected habitat at the broadest scale of
the three groups, with a best-fitting spatial scale of 4750 m radius,
followed by females at 2500 m, and then young at 1500 m. We did not
distinguish between females with and without calves in the female, as
the habitat used by females with calves was captured in modelling young.
Nine of the fourteen predictors that best explained male moose habitat
use were human footprint variables: recreation, residential,
cultivation, clearings, borrowpits, facilities, mines, seismic lines,
and wells (Figures 3, 4). Male moose were the only group with no burn
area predictors in the top model. Instead, the remaining five predictors
were land cover types: water, closed mixed or deciduous forests, bogs
and wetlands, closed shrublands, and open conifer stands. Of all
predictors, recreation areas had the largest β estimate and wells had
the smallest. Only closed shrublands, mines, and open conifer stands had
negative associations with male moose habitat use, whereas all other
variables had positive associations (Figures 3, 4).
Female moose were the most detected (Figure 2) and selected habitat
slightly differently than males (Figures 3, 4). Area burned (including
areas burnt 11-15 and 16-20 years ago) was the strongest predictor of
female moose, with strong negative effect sizes. Female moose avoided
nearly all burned areas but had positive habitat associations with
harvest, pipelines, and many other human features. Unlike males, females
had positive associations with closed shrubland and mines.
Young moose, which had the lowest detection rate (Figure 2), had the
strongest effect sizes of model predictors and the largest number of
predictors that differed from the other groups (Figures 3, 4). Five of
the 12 variables that predicted young moose habitat were human footprint
variables. Young moose were the only group to have positive associations
with burned areas (including areas burnt 11-15 and 16-20 years ago).
Like female moose, young moose had positive associations with closed
shrublands. However, there were two predictors not in the top female
moose models where young moose differed from male moose, including
facilities and seismic lines. Young moose strongly avoided both
features, despite their very slight positive association with adult male
moose use (Figures 3, 4).
Discussion
Industrial resource extraction has altered moose relative abundance and
distribution across the nearly 10,000 km2 of the
Whitefish Lake First Nation territory, just as observed by elders and
community members. Human footprint metrics explained variance in moose
detections in all models, though often with very small effect sizes.
However, the young moose model, where we expected to see strong
selection for high-quality forage areas in open spaces, had the
strongest negative relationship with anthropogenic landscape features
(Figures 3, 4). The strong negative relationship between young moose and
petroleum exploration “seismic” lines (Dabros et al., 2018) and
industrial processing facilities (Fisher &
Burton, 2018) supports the observations of Indigenous community members
and reiterates the importance of both broad and local-scale impacts of
human land use on boreal species important to Indigenous communities.
Importantly, young moose strongly selected for slightly older burned
areas, suggesting that early-seral forage generated by natural
disturbance is important, but that human-caused disturbance (which also
has ample early-seral forage vegetation
(Routh & Nielsen, 2021)) is not
equivalent to the young, open-canopy patches created by fire. Fire (or
here, burned area) has a large and important role in boreal
environments, but is rapidly shifting in size and severity across
Canada, impacting wildlife species (DeMars
et al., 2019; Palm et al., 2022). The
roles of both fire and human land use as strong drivers in moose habitat
selection are well-known (DeMars et al.,
2019; Dickie et al., 2020;
Ethier et al., 2024;
Fisher & Burton, 2018;
Fisher & Wilkinson, 2005;
Johnson & Rea, 2023), but we highlight
the important distinction between open areas caused by fire, versus
those caused by resource extraction, for young moose seeking
high-quality forage. For traditional territories highly impacted by
development, such as WLFN’s territory, this has substantial consequences
for food sovereignty.