Abstract

People provide wild ungulates with large quantities of supplementary feed to improve their health and survival and reduce forest damage. Whereas supplementary feeding can positively affect the winter survival of ungulates and short-term hunting success, some of the feeds provided may actually reduce ungulate health and increase forest damage. Here, we highlight how recent advances in ungulate nutritional ecology can help explain why supplementary feeding can lead to undesirable outcomes. Using Europe's largest cervid, the moose (Alces alces), as a model species, and Sweden, as the socio-ecological context, we explain the concept of nutritional balancing and its relevance to supplementary feeding. Nutritional balancing refers to how animals alter their food intake to achieve a specific nutritional target balance in their diet, by selecting balanced food items or by combining items with nutritional compositions that are complimentary. As the most common supplementary feeds used contain higher concentrations of non-structural carbohydrates than the ungulates' normal winter diet, the consumption of such feeds may cause animals to increase their intake of woody browse, and thereby exacerbate forest damage. We also explain how animal health may be negatively affected by large intakes of such feed if complementary browse items are not available. We therefore suggest that the use of inappropriate feed is an additional means by which supplementary feeding may result in negative outcomes for hunters, forest owners, and wild animals.

Keywords

Sweden; Alces alces; Moose; Supplementary feeding; Browsing; Forest damage; Animal health; Wildlife

Published in

Mammal Research
2017, Volume: 62, number: 1, pages: 1-7

SLU Authors

• Felton, Annika

  • Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Felton, Adam

  • Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Cromsigt, Joris

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Edenius, Lars

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

SLU Future Forests
Nature experiences and health


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-016-0301-1

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/78078