Affiliation:
1. Indigenous Land Management Institute and Department of Animal and Poultry Science, College of Agriculture and Bioresources, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A8, Canada (e-mail: ryan.brook@usask.ca).
Abstract
I examined the home range and habitat selection of 146 radio-collared female elk ( Cervus elaphus L., 1758) from 2002 to 2005 during the calving period (15 May to 24 June). I determined the proportion of home ranges of parturient cow elk during the calving period and the proportion of birthing sites of elk that were in either forested protected areas or the adjacent fragmented agriculture-dominated matrix in southwestern Manitoba, Canada. Overall, 73% of the minimum convex polygon home ranges were entirely within a protected area, 6% were only on farmland, and 21% included both. Home ranges including farmland and protected area (mean = 17.9 km2) were 3.8 times larger than those entirely inside a protected area (mean = 4.7 km2) or only on farmland (mean = 4.5 km2) (U = –2.79, P = 0.005). Female elk remaining solely in protected areas selected deciduous and mixedwood forest, marsh and fen, and water at the scale of the home range. Elk exclusively on farmland selected forage crops only. At the scale of the birthing site, females on farmland and those in protected areas selected only deciduous forest, and both types avoided agricultural cropland and marsh and fen. Identification of calving habitat will allow resource managers to manage bovine tuberculosis in the population more effectively.
Publisher
Canadian Science Publishing
Subject
Animal Science and Zoology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Reference47 articles.
1. Social Behavior of Elk, Cervus Canadensis Nelsoni, in the Jackson Hole Area of Wyoming
2. Predation and Survival of White-Tailed Deer Fawns in Northcentral New Brunswick
3. Scale and heterogeneity in habitat selection by elk in Yellowstone National Park
4. Brook, R.K. 2008. Elk–agriculture conflicts in the Greater Riding Mountain Ecosystem: building bridges between the natural and social sciences to promote sustainability. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Environment and Geography, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.
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28 articles.
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