How old is my moose?

by Pat

Yearling Male Moose usually shows 2-3 points on each side

Yearling Male Moose usually shows 2-3 points on each side

A quick question for your expert, how can you tell the age of a moose, at one time I thought it had something to do with points on their antlers. Please set me straight.
Thanks a bunch.



Thanks for the question.

The only accurate way to age a moose is by extracting teeth. See these articles...
Aging Moose by their Teeth

Moose Jaw from a 4 1/2 year old moose(Photo submitted by Carl Kozak)



Moose Antlers

The moose tooth root is covered and protected by a substance called cementum whereas the body of the tooth is made of with dentine and covered with enamel. Each year of tooth growth a new layer of cementum is added.

An incisor tooth (front center) is first extracted and the root is cut crossways about 1/4 of the length of the tooth, measured up from the root tip.

After grinding and polishing a cross section of a moose incisor tooth a biologist is able to view, under a 30X magnification microscope the cementum rings and count how many years old the moose is.

~Mark

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