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Moose (Alces alces) hunting and other means of forest food production employed by members ofFirstNations communities are undertaken as part oftheir treaty rights in Ontario, articulated in specific nation-to-nation agreements with the Government of Canada on behalf of the British Crown. Aroland First Nation in Northwestern Ontario is party to Treaty 9 (1905), which overtly protects the community's rights to hunt throughout the unoccupied tracts of Crown land claimed as "traditional territory." Traditional use supersedes provincial authority and, as such, is not managed by provincial policy or regulation. This jurisdictional divide has presented an interesting history and many challenges for both provincial managers and First Nations land users. Strained relationships between provincial authorities and First Nations, emergent from decades of misunderstandings of jurisdictional authority, have presented difficulty in all aspects of natural resource management. In this paper, we engaged community-based researchers in an exploration of the community's perspective of the current and historical management regime. In collaboration with community members, we interpret the results, discuss implications, and provide considerations for future managers and policy makers. We also quantified the annual moose harvest by Aro land and Ginoogaming First Nations that is only estimated by provincial managers; our results show provincial calculations may underestimate total harvests by up to 40%. This error could have significant implications for future moose populations, wildlife managers, and both provincial and First Nations hunters. The potential for such errors serves to highlight our call for provincial authorities to seek and engage First Nations perspectives and participation in moose management for the benefit of the entire community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents moose (Alces alces) winter diets in the northern portion of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest region of Ontario. Seventeen of 20 species available along 2,890m of moose foraging path were browsed. Striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum), eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), balsam fir (A bies balsamea), and red maple (Acer rubrum) comprised a combined 74 and 56 % of the browse dry weight consumed and available, respectively. Moose used balsam fir, eastern hemlock, and red maple proportionally more than their availability, used sugar maple (Acer saccharum), yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis), and mountain ash (Sorbus americana) proportionally less than their availability, and used striped maple, beaked hazel (Corylus cornuta), and mountain maple (Acer spicatum) proportional to their availability. The important contribution of striped maple and eastern hemlock to moose diets contrast with other studies. These results may be used to assist in the evaluation of moose winter habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]