Talk:Moose/Archive 3

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inclusion in Category:Urban animals?

I'm not sure the moose could be considered an urban animal. While they are not shy about entering small towns or suburbs, I have never encountered one in an actual city. Where I live on the Kenai Peninsula, they come into towns in winter when the snow gets deep in the hills, and again in the spring when the pregnant cows actually use civilization as cover, because they know that bears and wolves are less welcome around humans than they are, and many of my neighbors have had the experience of getting up one spring morning to find a moose giving birth in their yard. But if you go to major city centers such as Anchorage, there are not moose in the actual urban centers at all, although they do come into the suburbs quite regularly. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, it seems nobody else has an opinion, I've removed the category. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

True, while a moose or bear will occasionally stray into downtown Anchorage, they rarely venture from wooded areas. It's pretty rare with bears, but it's often common to see a moose around the park strip or the coastal trail, or anywhere else in Anchorage where vegetation is plentiful. I still wouldn't call them an urban animnal, by any means. Zaereth (talk) 22:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Population in Sweden

I'm seeing that no one has written on the population of moose in Sweden so i'm going to add some information i've got from http://80.88.126.98/viltvetande/artpresentation/algpopulation.asp they are proffesionals so they should know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dinnemesis (talk • contribs) 22:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC) A summer population is the estimated population at the summer before the swedish hunting season as plenty induviduals are shot.

Citation for the sidebar on moose scat?

While I have seen "moose poop" et al on sale in a number of places, in my experience it's actually chocolate and thoroughly edible. If the real thing is actually being sold, fair enough, but a mention of the "fake" product is probably also appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.28.209.27 (talk) 02:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I've seen both. Candy stores will sell "moose nuggets" and I've even seen a contraption like a little wooden moose, you pull it's head down and "treats" come out of it's backside. I don't know which is worse, buying a bag of actual excrement or eating pretend excrement... Beeblebrox (talk) 16:04, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I can look for citations. The Anchorage Daily News probably did a story at one time. Strangely enough, you can find both kinds, although the chocolate covered "real thing" is obviously a gag gift, mainly sold to tourists around these parts, who buy them like crazy. Little stick figures and "jewelry" and such are all sold as gag gifts. I'd hate to have the job of putting those together, but it's nice to know that someone is industrious enough to make a living at it. Zaereth (talk) 22:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

domestication

Perhaps this section could be moved after food as they seem related more closely than where it is now. I cannot do it as the page is protected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.231.178.239 (talk) 16:59, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with moving that section up a little. Does anyone else object?Zaereth (talk) 18:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 24.180.173.157, 26 September 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Please make sections History, As food, Vehicle collisions and Domestication sub-sections of a section called Relationship with humans. Make Aggression part of Biology and behavior. 24.180.173.157 (talk) 03:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Done Ronk01 talk 04:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Name consistency

They mix together the terms moose and elk which is confusing. In American English Elk is a different thing than a moose, in Europe Elk is most commonly used for moose. But use either one of the terms consequently so you don't mix them together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.70.32.28 (talk) 16:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree. After mentioning that the European name is "elk," (which I didn't know before I read this article), an effort should be made to use the name as written in the title, for mere consistency. Zaereth (talk) 23:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the main point here is that nobody in Europe - or, for that matter, nobody speaking british english around the world - would ever call "Alces Alces" a "European elk". They - we, as I am a non-native speaker of british english - call it simply an "Elk", or at most an "Eurasian elk". I do understand that in North America "Elk" is "Cervus Canadensis", but these pages - "Moose" and "Elk" - already follow the North American usage in redirection: so, I changed the first sentence putting in "Eurasian elk" instead of "European elk". 93.37.208.52 (talk) 01:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

There are no moose in Europe, only elk. The naming adopted at present for Wikipedia is very confusing. I would suggest that moving the content to the binomials, and having dab pages at moose and elk would be less unsatisfactory then the current position. DuncanHill (talk) 00:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What Europeans call an elk is called a moose in North America. Therefore the animal known as moose does in fact live in Europe, it's just not called that there. There is another animal that is called an elk in North America that is not a moose. The whole thing makes me want to bitch slap whoever mis-named the North American elk, which is more like the European red deer. If only I had a time machine... I don't think using the Latin binomials is a good solution. Normally we use the common name of an animal for it's article. While what is the most common name for this animal is obviously the source of this problem, "Alces Alces" is definitely not it. Maybe we should move some of the content from the naming section up into the lead or change the hatnotes to make this more clear though. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

There are no elk in North America, only wapiti! :) We can't use the common name unless we decide that one form of English (either American or British) should be pre-eminent on Wikipedia, which I think we can safely assume is a non-starter. The bit where it says it's called a Eurasian elk is just plain wrong, I've eaten the damn things and never heard them called that until I was misled into thinking that today's featured article was about elk, when in fact it isn't, and staggered through the less than ideal hatnote there. DuncanHill (talk) 01:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It is very aggravating that some misguided explorers messed this up for us 200 years ago. The thing is, as we can see "elk" is used to refer to two different animals, alce alces in Europe and cervus canadensis in North America. "Moose" is used only ever used to refer to alces alces. I think that, more than American-vs-British English (which I wholeheartedly agree is not a debate we want to get into) is the reason this page is titled "moose." I guess what I am saying is that this is less of a moose problem and more of an elk problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe elk should be a dab page then. DuncanHill (talk) 01:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably best if this article remains at "Moose" and the "Elk" article moves to "Wapiti" with "Elk" then redirecting to a disambiguation page. This puts both articles in unambiguous namespaces. --Khajidha (talk) 20:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Within the acritcle could I suggest that "moose" is used primarily throughout the article but when in reference to the european populations elk should be used, particualrly in the Europe section. --Lemonade100 20:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

A related discussion occurred at Talk:Moose/Archive_1#Classification. Walter Siegmund (talk) 21:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The term Eurasian elk is commonly used outside Eurasia but not likely in Eurasia. But that is not surprising. North Americans don't call their beaver the North American beaver they just call it the beaver--same for the American Robin and the American red squirrel. Since Wikipedia is a transnational encyclopedia it should use names that are unambiguous. Eurasian elk is a term that points unambiguously to A. alces--the term elk can mean two different species and should be avoided in this article. Dger (talk) 21:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

This has been discussed before and on the elk page too. The current naming is consistent in the only English-speaking places where these animals actually live. The idea that we should change it for people on a little island with no elk and no moose is ridiculous.LRT24 (talk) 05:35, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Section "Aggression" contains poor grammar

Please edit the following sentence, "During the fall mating season, bull moose may be aggressive toward humans due to the high hormone levels they experience during this time." I suggest removing second use of the word "during." It's redundant and reads funny. Would read better as: "Bull moose experience high levels of hormones during the fall mating season, which may result in aggressive behavior towards humans." Or something similar...

Done. Zaereth (talk) 21:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Expand section

I think "Social behavior and reproduction" should be tagged with an extension templete. It seems fairly short. 24.180.173.157 (talk) 03:03, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I have observed that simply tagging something as needing expansion is ineffective about 98% of the time. There are nearly 3.5 million articles on Wikipedia, and at least half of those could use expansion. Moose don't actually have much a of a social structure anyway, seeing more than three or four of them in one place is extremely rare and in my experience only happens in winter if there is a food source in a particular area. Adult moose generally do not like one another and a mother will sometimes chase off another cow that is competing for the same food source. I have seen this with my own eyes on a few occasions. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, in this world of advertizement bombardment I tend to instictively ignore all tags. It's true, moose are anti-social animals, preferring to be alone. The only time I've ever seen them in groups is a mother before she drives off her young, or during the rutting season when bulls fight for the right to breed with the cows. It might be worth expanding this section to include some of the reproductive behavior like rut. I think it's mentioned in the "aggression" section, but is definitely worth expanding on in this section. I might do some expanding in the future, but don't have time to do the proper research right now. Zaereth (talk) 21:27, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

map problems

After discovering that the elk article has a map that misrepresents the extent of their northern range I took a look at the map here and discovered that it directly contradicts the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's map of the moose territory [1]. Moose don't live on the southeast coast of Alaska, and they certainly don't live out in the Aleutian Islands. I have asked for some help with this at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Map workshop, and I'm wondering if anyone sees any other inconsistencies or errors on the map as long as we're trying to get it fixed up. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

While we are on the subject of their range, could anyone help by writing up a section on their distribution, past and present, in northern Asia, to add to the ones on North America and Europe, and adjust the map accordingly? I am sorry, but I don't have the resources here to do the needed research. Thanks, John Hill (talk) 11:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

This map here seems to be quite a bit more accurate than most others I've seen. For instance, our map seems to show that the Alaska/Yukon moose (Alces alces gigas) know where the Canadian border is and stay only in Alaska. However, the map at this website doesn't show the difference between the distribution of the Canadian moose and the American moose. It might still be a helpful map, as it would seem more accurate when compared to the ADFG map. Zaereth (talk) 20:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Elk size vs Elk size

(Re Elk and Elk, I'm going to call these "Moose" and "Wapiti" resp. since I'm from New Zealand and that's what we call them here, and just to keep it clear which I'm referring to)

The Moose page says the Wapiti is "much larger" and is the second largest of all deer species, while the Wapiti page says the opposite, that the Moose is larger.

The heights and weights given in the Moose page section "Size" and the Wapiti page section "Anatomy" support the Moose being much the larger of the two, but I don't know how reliable those figures are, since the pages say opposite things elsewhere.

Could someone who does actually know the reliability of those figures perhaps fix this? Isiridith (talk) 07:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone claim that the moose was not the largest species of deer. Elk are big but I thought everyone agreed that the moose are more massive. Powers ^T 15:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The Elk (known as the Moose in North America) .... is the largest of all the deer: males (bulls) grow to over 2m at the shoulder... from Collins Wild Animals, William Collins Sons and Co, London and Glasgow, 1980, page 187. I suspect someone has been confused by elk/moose and elk/wapiti. Alces alces is the bigger. DuncanHill (talk) 15:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

calories / Calories

The second sentence under diet reads: "The average adult moose needs to consume 9770 calories per day to maintain its body weight."

This should be the capital-C Calorie, which is the food calorie or kilogram calorie, which is equal to 1000 small-c calories or gram calories. As written, the moose eats 9.77 food Calories per day, or about 5 Tic Tacs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musubk (talk • contribs) 05:07, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Alternatively, write it as 9770 kcal, with the kilocalorie being common unit used on nutritional labels now, but risk confusion of people thinking moose consume 9.7 million food Calories per day. Or use the completely unambiguous but difficult to interpret Joule as the unit of energy. Personally, I think writing '9770 Food Calories' is the clearest way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musubk (talk • contribs) 05:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Distribution of European species

European elk or Moose (Alces alces) - this is the primary meaning of Elk in English. Is there a map for the distribution of European species or are we still forced to use the American map? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.75.78.130 (talk) 10:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Other than making an unfounded assertion about WP:ENGVAR, I'm not sure what you mean. File:Moose distribution.png shows both North American and Eurasian moose populations. Whether they are called elk in Europe or not does not change where they live. Unfortunately it is not a very accurate map, but I had no luck trying to get the graphic lab to make a new one and I have no idea how to do it myself. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:43, 26 May 2011 (UTC)