i investigated summer habitat selection patterns within the home ranges of 60 gps-collared adult female moose (alces alces) in northwestern ontario. i developed a model that identified the ‘summer’ period for moose and i suggest and test a new approach for objectively delineating areas of intense use, or ‘core’ areas. once summer and core areas were established, i tested two competing hypotheses to identify differences in habitat selected between the core areas and home range peripheries; (1) core areas represent superior spatial configurations of habitats when compared to home range peripheries; and (2) core areas are selected to contain a subset of ‘preferred’ forage species with higher individual densities or a higher total density of all forage species than home range peripheries. the study was conducted in 2 landscapes characterized by different disturbance patterns created by different timber harvesting systems: modified “guidelines” cut (mgc); and progressive, contiguous clear cut (pcc). moose move more and faster during the summer than the winter to exploit available forage. i defined moose ‘summer’ as the period during the calendar year when an animal maintains a rate of movement greater than the annual mean. using a sub-sample (n=32) of animals collared in 2000,1 determined 1 may 2000 as the median date for the ‘winter-summer’ transition (range: 2 april-24 may) and the median transition from ‘summer-winter’ was 25 august 2000 (range: 1 aug-23 october). moose home ranges were designated using a 90% adaptive kernel. within the home range, moose devote a disproportionate amount of time to a fraction of the total area.