Alberta has the bighorn sheep. Manitoba has the plains bison. Yukon has the raven. So what’s Ontario’s official animal?
We don’t have one — yet.
The loon is our official bird, but we can’t help but think that Ontario’s other furry and feathery (and slippery and leathery) denizens haven’t been given a chance to compete.
That’s why, over the next eight weeks, TVO.org will be giving 16 Ontario animals their turn in the spotlight. You’ll learn about how they live, what threats they’re facing, and how they reflect the province’s character. At the end of the series, you’ll get the chance to make your voice heard — and to vote for your favourite critter.
The winner may not end up on a flag or a coat of arms. But they’ll get a fancy title: Ontario’s unofficial official animal.
Illlustration from Four-footed Americans and Their Kin, 1898. (Biodiversity Heritage Library/Flickr)
Species/scientific name: Alces alces
Adult size: Between 1.75 and 2.25 metres at the shoulder
Adult weight: Male moose (or bulls) usually weigh between 360 and 600 kilograms. The largest bulls can reach 771 kilograms. Female moose (known as cows) typically weigh around 270-400 kilograms — the biggest can weigh up to 573 kilograms/
Longevity: 8-12 years in the wild
Feeding and diet: Herbivores that eat woody shrubs (such as aspen, willow, and mountain ash), leaves, and aquatic plants
Predators: Wolves, bears
Threats: Habitat loss, climate change, parasites (including brainworm and ticks)
Habitat: The boreal forest, where young forest and aquatic areas provide sustenance and mature forest provides protection from the elements
Range: Boreal forest, Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region
Population in Ontario: 91,200
Conservation status in Ontario: Common
(Steven Tulissi/Ontario Nature)
Moose are a “real symbol of Ontario’s wild,” says Keith Munro, wildlife biologist with the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. According to Munro, moose are important “for a huge number of reasons: They’re ecologically a very important species. Both culturally and traditionally, they’re really important. And economically, they’re really important.”
These cloven-hooved beasts — the biggest of the bunch weigh in at nearly 1,700 pounds and reach more than two metres at the shoulder — are the province’s largest big-game animal, and hunting them contributes over $205 million annually to the provincial economy.
Moose, the largest members of the deer family, are a “cultural keystone species” for Indigenous people, who have been harvesting moose since time immemorial. Some First Nations communities have observed a decline in moose populations, raising concerns over food security and the ability to pass on cultural traditions.
Moose in Lake Superior Park
The province employs a management approach for moose more intense than that for other species, in part because there are more moose hunters in Ontario than there are moose available to hunt, Munro says. Between the early 1980s and the early aughts, Ontario’s moose population grew from roughly 80,000 to a peak of 115,000. Today, there are an estimated 91,200 — only 78,000 of which live in areas where they can be hunted, according to provincial estimates. There are 91,000 licensed hunters vying for these moose, plus an unknown number of Indigenous people who participate in constitutionally protected rights-based hunting, which doesn’t require a licence.
However, Munro says that “taking a provincial approach” to moose-population numbers “can be a bit misleading. Because of the scale that moose are across the province, there’s a whole lot of variation in both how the populations are doing and the pressures that are on those populations.” Ontario is divided into 69 Wildlife Management Units “for the purpose of managing wildlife species,” explains Munro, and within these WMU’s, “you have some areas where moose are struggling and then some where they’re doing quite well.”
To get these population estimates, every three to five years and always during the wintertime, observers fly over specific WMUs, count the number of moose they see, and record their age and sex. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry uses this data to estimate the moose population in the area; that in turn determines the number of tags the MNRF issues to licensed hunters within the WMU to ensure a sustainable harvest.
Wild fact: At Russia's Kostroma Moose Farm, the animals supply milk for a nearby sanitorium.
“Moose are interesting in that they use different habitats throughout the year,” says Munro. Moose are “browsers” that feed primarily on woody shrubs and plants found in young forests cleared either by the forestry industry or wildfires, though they also require the “thermal cover” provided by mature forests in the winter. During the spring and summer, moose can be found in aquatic areas, where they feast on plants that contain minerals essential to their diet, like sodium, iron, and potassium, says Munro, adding that moose are “excellent swimmers” and will jump in a lake to escape such predators as wolves and bears.
“One of the key things that we as an organization really push the government to do is to ensure that their moose management considers all the aspects that affect a moose population,” Munro says. “That includes both licensed and rights-based harvest. It includes forestry and its role in creating habitat. But it also includes things like predation, disease, climate change, parasites. Really, when you look at moose populations around the province, it’s pretty unlikely that a population is being affected by only one of those factors.”
Profiles of Nature: The Moose of Algonquin
As humans alter habitats and climate change leads to warmer winters, deer are moving north into moose habitat, posing additional challenges: wolves can follow, bringing an additional threat, Munro says, and deer carry brainworm, a parasite that, while it doesn’t affect them, can be fatal in moose. (A 2020 study conducted in northeastern Minnesota found that between 25 and 45 per cent of moose died from brainworm.) The parasite is “a pretty large concern,” says Munro.
“They have a lot of factors that influence them,” says Munro. “I find it fascinating to dive into those different aspects and really try to figure out the things we need to do to ensure long-term conservation of moose in Ontario.”
According to Munro, moose should be Ontario’s official animal because they’re “a very strong symbol of Ontario’s wilderness.” But also, “moose is delicious,” he says. “I highly recommend it.”
This series is produced with the assistance of Ontario Nature.
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