ABSTRACT
Moose are quasisolitary animals that frequent one or more seasonally distinct home ranges. Environmental variables, such as snow depth, determine the spatial relationship of these seasonal ranges. Fecal pellet counts, seasonal trend counts, and aerial enumeration have all been employed as methods for estimating moose densities. However, aerial counting over snow is generally accepted as the best inventory procedure. These surveys provide information on numerical abundance as well as sex and age composition; females may be distinguished from males, even after the latter have shed their antlers, by the presence of a white vulval hair patch. Aerial inventories may be conducted either by flying a series of linear transects over the area to be censused or by means of intensive search and presumably complete counts of the animals present on preselected plots. The flight pattern used for intensive-search counts over individual plots will vary according to the type of aircraft employed. An orbiting coverage is recommended with fixed-wing aircraft.
