Wallin, K., Cederlund, G. & Pehrson, Å. 1996: Predicting body mass from chest circumference in moose Alces alces. - Wildl. Biol. 2: 53-58.
Weighing large animals in the field is often labourious and expensive. Alternative methods which replace direct measurements of body mass are, therefore, of practical value. In order to predict body mass in moose Alces alces, an allometric model based on chest circumference, sex, age and population was applied. A model to predict body mass based on chest circumference and a truncated age measurement is suggested. Impact of sex and population was weak. The ability to predict body mass was mostly influenced by chest circumference. The proportion of carcass mass to total body mass varied between 45% and 51% among age-classes. In addition, there was a slight effect of sex on this variation, males having a proportionally larger carcass mass than females. The model's predictions of body mass are adequate for describing the distribution of body mass in moose populations and for comparing moose populations.
Key words: morphometrics, body mass, carcass mass, chest circumference, mass prediction, moose, Sweden
Kjell Wallin*, Department of Animal Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, S-901 83 Umeå, Sweden
Göran Cederlund & Åke Pehrson, Department of Wildlife Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Grimsö, S-730 91 Riddarhyttan, Sweden
*Present address: Department of Applied Environmental Science, University of Göteborg, Medicinaregatan 20A, S-413 90 Göteborg, Sweden
Received 1 November 1995, accepted 26 February 1996
Associate Editor: Bernt-Erik Sæther