That noble beast, the moose, has been added to the list of things that contribute to so-called climate change..A study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) doesn’t just claim the animals are contributors, it says moose are potentially a leading cause of climate change and they should be balanced..“Moose are an ecosystem engineer in the forest ecosystem, and strongly impact everything from the species composition and nutrient availability in the forest,” Gunnar Austrheim, an ecologist at the NTNU University Museum and one of the study’s three co-authors, said in a press release..What they prefer to eat is why moose can be responsible for a large additional amount of carbon emissions, says Francesco Cherubini, director of NTNU’s Industrial Ecology (IndEcol) Programme and co-author of the paper..Moose like to eat young deciduous trees, like birch, rowan and willow. So, the young saplings that would normally sprout in the forest after a timber company clearcuts an area never get the chance to grow, reports Newsmax..The saplings, when full grown, bind up CO2 in their trunks, leaves and roots, so moose effectively devour that source of carbon storage..“It was really a surprise to see how much moose can influence vegetation growth, the carbon cycle and the climate system,” says Xiangping Hu, a researcher at IndEcol and co-author of the study. “A grown animal can eat 50 kilograms of biomass each day during summer.”.The solution suggested is to balance moose numbers and forest management in an effort to limit CO2 emissions, said Cherbuni. ."We don’t only regulate the amount of animals, we very carefully regulate the proportion of females, males and calves. So there’s a stronger management for moose than for most livestock in Norway," he said. "I think as we get more of an understanding of how all these different things are interrelated, land managers could come up with an optimal plan. That could be a much-needed win-win solution for climate, for biodiversity and for timber value.".“One of the biggest unknowns we have in our understanding of the climate system and the carbon cycle is potentially the effect of larger animals, and how they interact with carbon storage in vegetation. This study gave us a great opportunity to quantify this effect. We have some numbers that we can relate to the regional carbon budget, and which actually show the importance of large animals like the moose.”.The moose is not the first animal so-called climate activists label as a potential threat to the climate..Last year, the New Zealand government levied a ‘fart tax’ on herds of cattle, sheep and other animals and in 2019, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) linked farting cows to causing so-called climate change, adding "we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch, and dinner" in her effort to reduce carbon emissions coming from cows.."We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero, emissions in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast," said Ocasio-Cortez..It all seems like a bunch of hot air.
