Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇳🇴 Norway

Moose - the giant of the Norwegian forest

Two metres tall at the shoulder, with antlers wider than a car

A bull moose standing in a Norwegian forest with huge palm-shaped antlers

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Moose - sometimes called the European elk - are the largest deer in the world. A male moose can stand two metres tall at the shoulder, and its antlers can stretch nearly two metres wide. Around 120,000 moose live wild in Norwegian forests. Norwegians call them 'the king of the forest'.

Tell me more

Moose look a bit like a horse and a deer mixed together, with a long droopy nose and a flap of skin under the chin called a 'bell'. Their legs are very long, which means they can wade through deep snow and across rivers easily. They are excellent swimmers - they can swim for hours and even dive a few metres underwater for water plants.

Only the males grow antlers. The antlers are flat and shaped a bit like a giant pair of hands held out wide. Every winter the antlers drop off, and every spring a brand-new pair grows back, bigger than before. By autumn they are full size.

Moose eat huge amounts of plants - around 30 kg of leaves, twigs and water plants a day. That's like eating six hundred lettuces. They prefer to eat alone or in small groups, wandering quietly through the forest.

Moose are not aggressive, but because they are so big, Norwegian road signs warn drivers to watch out for them. Some Norwegian motorways are even built with special bridges across the road just for moose - they have grass and trees on them, so the moose feel comfortable crossing.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might a moose need to be such a strong swimmer?
  2. 02A moose grows a new pair of antlers every year. What other things in nature get rebuilt from scratch every year?
  3. 03Some Norwegian motorways have grass bridges just for moose. What other ways might we build cities to share space with wildlife?
Try this

Classroom activity

Mark out a moose on the playground with chalk - 2 metres tall and 3 metres long. Stand inside the outline. How many of your class would fit? Now sketch its 2-metre wide antlers. Compare them to your own arms held out wide.