The Romerike moose population � area use after the Gardermoen development

Summary

Upper Romerike has had a succession of large developments over the last 10 years while it remains the most important winter grazing area for moose from the surrounding region. How moose used this winter grazing was documented before most of the development projects began. The Defense Department plans to begin using new training areas in upper Romerike in 2004 and they wanted a status report on how moose were using these areas before any military training activities began. This will define the null impact situation and help to suggest mitigation measures that will make the negative consequences of training activities as few as possible. Habitat use by moose during the winter of 2002-2003 was mapped by counting moose droppings along smaller transectslaid out in a systematic grid within the training areas as well as in the neighboring areas. These data were supplemented with counts of moose tracks through wildlife crossings over the Gardermoen railway. The dropping data was analyzed using both spatial interpolation and with Resource Selection Functions (RSF) and both are presented on maps. The map shows that the forested area of Trandumskogen made up the central core of moose activity in the Upper Romerike region with moose activities extending out from this in both a northeastern and southeastern direction. The study also showed that there were many moose located in an area just northeast of the Army camp at Hauerseter and that moose were using the adjacent area on the east side of E6 more than had been registered earlier. Habitat models from the RSF analysis were based on two types of explanatory variables � distance to roads, wildlife passages, and human concentrations; and the areal coverage of different forest types (according to CORINE land cover classifications). Using these models we then tested different activity and development scenarios to model the expected changes in moose habitat use and activity. Counts of moose droppings together with track counts showed that the wildlife passages along the Gardermoen Railway functioned better now (5 years after the opening of the railway) then when they were first evaluated in 1999. Three scenarios of possible future developments in habitat conditions or changes in moose-human conflicts are described. Should the Defense Department take the precautions suggested in this report during their training activities then it is expected that such activity will have little impact on the moose population. However, the future situation for moose isextremely dependant upon how additional land development throughout out the Upper Romerike area is conducted and what happens with mitigation measures along E6.