Revision History: Moose

In Europe, moose are currently found in large numbers throughout Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and the Baltic States, with more modest numbers in the southern Czech Republic, Belarus and northern Ukraine. They are also widespread through Russia on up through the borders with Finland south towards the border with Estonia, Belarus and Ukraine and stretching far away eastwards to the Yenisei River in Siberia. The European moose was native to most temperate areas that it could physically inhabit on the continent and even Scotland from the end of the last Ice Age as Europe's traditional habitat had a natural mix of temperate boreal and deciduous forest. It was certainly thriving in both Gaul and Magna Germania as it appears in military and hunting accounts of the age. However, as the Roman era faded into medieval times, the beast slowly disappeared: it survived in Alsace and the Netherlands until the 9th century as the marshlands in the latter were drained and the forests were being cleared away for feudal lands in the former. It was gone from Switzerland by 1000 AD, gone from the western Czech Republic by 1300, gone from Mecklenburg in Germany by c. 1600, and has been gone from Hungary and the Caucasus since the 18th and 19th century respectively.

In North America, the moose range includes almost all of Canada (excluding the arctic), most of Alaska, northern New England and upstate New York, the upper Rocky Mountains, northeastern Minnesota, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Within this massive range, the most diverse range of subspecies exist, containing habitat for four of the six subspecies. In western portions of the continent, moose populations extend well north into Canada (British Columbia and Alberta) and more isolated groups have been verified as far south as the mountains of Utah and Colorado and as far west as the Lake Wenatchee area of the Washington Cascades.[8][9][10] In 1978, a few breeding pairs were reintroduced in western Colorado, and the state's moose population is now more than 1,000 with great potential to grow.

In Northeastern North America, the Eastern moose's history is very well documented: moose meat was often a staple in the diet of Native Americans going back centuries and it is a tribe that occupied present day coastal Rhode Island that gave this deer its distinctive name in American English. The Native Americans often used moose hides for leather and its meat as an ingredient in pemmican, a type of dried jerky used as a source of sustenance in winter or on long journeys from home.[11] Eastern tribes also valued moose leather as a source to make moccasins and other decorations.