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Rosenberger JP, Edge AC, Killmaster CH, Johannsen KL, Osborn DA, Nibbelink NP, Miller KV, D’Angelo GJ. Female Deer Movements Relative to Firearms Hunting in Northern Georgia, USA. Animals (Basel) 2024; 14:1212. [PMID: 38672360 PMCID: PMC11047325 DOI: 10.3390/ani14081212] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2024] [Revised: 04/13/2024] [Accepted: 04/14/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Perceived risk associated with hunters can cause white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to shift their activity away from key foraging areas or alter normal movements, which are important considerations in managing hunting and its effects on a population. We studied the effects of seven firearms hunts on the movements of 20 female deer in two Wildlife Management Areas within the Chattahoochee National Forest of northern Georgia, USA, during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 hunting seasons. Deer populations and the number of hunters in our study area have declined significantly since the 1980s. In response, hunting regulations for the 2019-2020 hunting season eliminated opportunities for harvesting female deer. To evaluate the indirect effects of antlered deer hunting on non-target female deer, we calculated 90% utilization distributions (UDs), 50% UDs, and step lengths for pre-hunt, hunt, and post-hunt periods using the dynamic Brownian bridge movement model. Data included 30 min GPS locations for 44 deer-hunt combinations. Pre-hunt 50% UDs (x- = 7.0 ha, SE = 0.4 ha) were slightly greater than both hunt (x- = 6.0 ha, SE = 0.3 ha) and post-hunt (x- = 6.0 ha, SE = 0.2 ha) 50% UDs (F = 3.84, p = 0.03). We did not detect differences in step length, nor did we detect differences in size or composition of 90% UDs, among the periods. Overall, our results suggest that the low level of hunting pressure in our study area and lack of exposure to hunters led to no biologically significant changes in female deer movements. To the extent of the findings presented in this paper, adjustments to the management of hunting in our study area do not appear to be necessary to minimize hunting-related disturbances for female deer. However, managers should continue to consider female deer behavior when evaluating future changes to hunting regulations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacalyn P. Rosenberger
- Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA (G.J.D.)
| | - Adam C. Edge
- Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA (G.J.D.)
| | - Charlie H. Killmaster
- Game Management Section, Wildlife Resources Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Social Circle, GA 30025, USA
| | - Kristina L. Johannsen
- Game Management Section, Wildlife Resources Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Social Circle, GA 30025, USA
| | - David A. Osborn
- Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA (G.J.D.)
| | - Nathan P. Nibbelink
- Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA (G.J.D.)
| | - Karl V. Miller
- Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA (G.J.D.)
| | - Gino J. D’Angelo
- Daniel B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA (G.J.D.)
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2
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Stewart DG, Gulsby WD, Ditchkoff SS, Collier BA. Spatiotemporal patterns of male and female white-tailed deer on a hunted landscape. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e9277. [PMID: 36110880 PMCID: PMC9465197 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9277] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2021] [Accepted: 08/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Resource selection in sexually dimorphic ungulates is at least partially explained by sex‐specific resource requirements and risk aversion strategies. Females generally spend more time in areas with less risk and abundant, high‐quality forage due to their smaller body size. However, demographically variable responses to risk are context dependent, and few have concurrently quantified male and female behavior within areas with the same resource base. We captured 111 (54 males, 57 females) adult white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from 2009 to 2018 on a site in South Carolina, USA, where hunters were the primary source of adult mortality. We fit each deer with a GPS collar programmed to collect locations at 30‐min intervals. Upon collar recovery, we analyzed the data to estimate sex‐ and time‐specific selection for, and distance to, various cover types. While both sexes generally avoided risky areas (i.e., sites hunted more frequently) during the day, females (p = .41) were more likely than males (p = .16) to use risky areas containing abundant food resources during the day, where p = probability of selection. Our findings indicate that female white‐tailed deer may be forced to utilize high risk areas during high risk periods due to their smaller body size and increased nutritional demands, whereas larger males are better able to forgo foraging opportunities during risky periods to mitigate risk; however, our study design left room for the possibility that our observations were driven by innate sex‐specific patterns in white‐tailed deer. Nonetheless, our study contributes information to the literature by describing sex‐specific resource selection by diel period on a site where sexes shared the same resources and were presented with the same landscape of risk.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dylan G Stewart
- College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment Auburn University Auburn Alabama USA
| | - William D Gulsby
- College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment Auburn University Auburn Alabama USA
| | - Stephen S Ditchkoff
- College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment Auburn University Auburn Alabama USA
| | - Bret A Collier
- School of Renewable Natural Resources Louisiana State University Baton Rouge Louisiana USA
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3
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Mols B, Lambers E, Cromsigt JPGM, Kuijper DPJ, Smit C. Recreation and hunting differentially affect deer behaviour and sapling performance. OIKOS 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.08448] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Bjorn Mols
- Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Inst. for Evolutionary Life Sciences, Univ. of Groningen Groningen the Netherlands
| | - Evert Lambers
- Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Inst. for Evolutionary Life Sciences, Univ. of Groningen Groningen the Netherlands
| | - Joris P. G. M. Cromsigt
- Dept of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences Umeå Sweden
- Dept of Zoology, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Univ. Port Elizabeth South Africa
| | | | - Christian Smit
- Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Inst. for Evolutionary Life Sciences, Univ. of Groningen Groningen the Netherlands
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4
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Moll RJ, McRoberts JT, Millspaugh JJ, Wiskirchen KH, Sumners JA, Isabelle JL, Keller BJ, Montgomery RA. A rare 300 kilometer dispersal by an adult male white-tailed deer. Ecol Evol 2021; 11:3685-3695. [PMID: 33976768 PMCID: PMC8093661 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7354] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/19/2020] [Revised: 01/31/2021] [Accepted: 02/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite the key roles that dispersal plays in individual animal fitness and meta-population gene flow, it remains one of the least understood behaviors in many species. In large mammalian herbivores, dispersals might span long distances and thereby influence landscape-level ecological processes, such as infectious disease spread. Here, we describe and analyze an exceptional long-distance dispersal by an adult white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the central United States. We also conducted a literature survey to compare the dispersal to previous studies. This dispersal was remarkable for its length, duration, and the life history stage of the dispersing individual. Dispersal is typical of juvenile deer seeking to establish postnatal home ranges, but this dispersal was undertaken by an adult male (age = 3.5). This individual dispersed ~300 km over a 22-day period by moving, on average, 13.6 km/day and achieving a straight-line distance of ~215 km, which was ~174 km longer than any other distance recorded for an adult male deer in our literature survey. During the dispersal, which occurred during the hunting season, the individual crossed a major river seven times, an interstate highway, a railroad, and eight state highways. Movements during the dispersal were faster (mean = 568.1 m/h) and more directional than those during stationary home range periods before and after the dispersal (mean = 56.9 m/h). Likewise, movements during the dispersal were faster (mean = 847.8 m/h) and more directional at night than during the day (mean = 166.4 m/h), when the individual frequently sheltered in forest cover. This natural history event highlights the unpredictable nature of dispersal and has important implications for landscape-level processes such as chronic wasting disease transmission in cervids. More broadly, our study underscores how integrating natural history observations with modern technology holds promise for understanding potentially high impact but rarely recorded ecological events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Remington J. Moll
- Department of Natural Resources and the EnvironmentUniversity of New HampshireDurhamNHUSA
| | - Jon T. McRoberts
- Wildlife Biology Program, W.A. Franke College of Forestry and ConservationUniversity of MontanaMissoulaMTUSA
| | - Joshua J. Millspaugh
- Wildlife Biology Program, W.A. Franke College of Forestry and ConservationUniversity of MontanaMissoulaMTUSA
| | | | | | | | - Barbara J. Keller
- Missouri Department of ConservationScience BranchColumbiaMOUSA
- Minnesota Department of Natural ResourcesSt. PaulMNUSA
| | - Robert A. Montgomery
- Research on the Ecology of Carnivores and their Prey (RECaP) LaboratoryDepartment of Fisheries and WildlifeMichigan State UniversityEast LansingMIUSA
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5
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Mysterud A, Rauset GR, Van Moorter B, Andersen R, Strand O, Rivrud IM. The last moves: The effect of hunting and culling on the risk of disease spread from a population of reindeer. J Appl Ecol 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13761] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Atle Mysterud
- Department of Biosciences Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES) University of Oslo Oslo Norway
| | | | | | - Roy Andersen
- Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) Trondheim Norway
| | - Olav Strand
- Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) Trondheim Norway
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6
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Jacobsen TC, Wiskirchen KH, Ditchkoff SS. A novel method for detecting extra-home range movements (EHRMs) by animals and recommendations for future EHRM studies. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0242328. [PMID: 33253220 PMCID: PMC7703910 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242328] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2020] [Accepted: 10/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Infrequent, long-distance animal movements outside of typical home range areas provide useful insights into resource acquisition, gene flow, and disease transmission within the fields of conservation and wildlife management, yet understanding of these movements is still limited across taxa. To detect these extra-home range movements (EHRMs) in spatial relocation datasets, most previous studies compare relocation points against fixed spatial and temporal bounds, typified by seasonal home ranges (referred to here as the "Fixed-Period" method). However, utilizing home ranges modelled over fixed time periods to detect EHRMs within those periods likely results in many EHRMs going undocumented, particularly when an animal's space use changes within that period of time. To address this, we propose a novel, "Moving-Window" method of detecting EHRMs through an iterative process, comparing each day's relocation data to the preceding period of space use only. We compared the number and characteristics of EHRM detections by both the Moving-Window and Fixed-Period methods using GPS relocations from 33 white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Alabama, USA. The Moving-Window method detected 1.5 times as many EHRMs as the Fixed-Period method and identified 120 unique movements that were undetected by the Fixed-Period method, including some movements that extended nearly 5 km outside of home range boundaries. Additionally, we utilized our EHRM dataset to highlight and evaluate potential sources of variation in EHRM summary statistics stemming from differences in definition criteria among previous EHRM literature. We found that this spectrum of criteria identified between 15.6% and 100.0% of the EHRMs within our dataset. We conclude that variability in terminology and definition criteria previously used for EHRM detection hinders useful comparisons between studies. The Moving-Window approach to EHRM detection introduced here, along with proposed methodology guidelines for future EHRM studies, should allow researchers to better investigate and understand these behaviors across a variety of taxa.
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Affiliation(s)
- Todd C. Jacobsen
- School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Kevyn H. Wiskirchen
- School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, United States of America
| | - Stephen S. Ditchkoff
- School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, United States of America
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7
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Michel ES, Strickland BK, Demarais S, Belant JL, Kautz TM, Duquette JF, Beyer DE, Chamberlain MJ, Miller KV, Shuman RM, Kilgo JC, Diefenbach DR, Wallingford BD, Vreeland JK, Ditchkoff SS, DePerno CS, Moorman CE, Chitwood MC, Lashley MA. Relative reproductive phenology and synchrony affect neonate survival in a nonprecocial ungulate. Funct Ecol 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13680] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Eric S. Michel
- Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Division of Fish and Wildlife Madelia MN USA
| | - Bronson K. Strickland
- Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture Mississippi State University Mississippi State MS USA
| | - Stephen Demarais
- Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture Mississippi State University Mississippi State MS USA
| | - Jerrold L. Belant
- Global Wildlife Conservation Center State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Syracuse NY USA
| | - Todd M. Kautz
- Global Wildlife Conservation Center State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Syracuse NY USA
| | - Jared F. Duquette
- Illinois Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division Forbes Natural History Building Champaign IL USA
| | - Dean E. Beyer
- Customer Service Center Michigan Department of Natural Resources Marquette MI USA
| | | | - Karl V. Miller
- Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources University of Georgia Athens GA USA
| | | | - John C. Kilgo
- USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station New Ellenton SC USA
| | - Duane R. Diefenbach
- U.S. Geological Survey Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Pennsylvania State University University Park PA USA
| | | | | | | | - Christopher S. DePerno
- Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program North Carolina State University Raleigh NC USA
| | - Christopher E. Moorman
- Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program North Carolina State University Raleigh NC USA
| | - M. Colter Chitwood
- Wildlife Biology Program, W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation University of Montana Missoula MT USA
| | - Marcus A. Lashley
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation University of Florida Gainesville FL USA
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8
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Haus JM, Webb SL, Strickland BK, McCarthy KP, Rogerson JE, Bowman JL. Individual heterogeneity in resource selection has implications for mortality risk in white‐tailed deer. Ecosphere 2020. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Jacob M. Haus
- Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology University of Delaware 531 South College Avenue Newark Delaware 19716 USA
| | - Stephen L. Webb
- Noble Research Institute, LLC 2510 Sam Noble Parkway Ardmore Oklahoma 73401 USA
| | - Bronson K. Strickland
- Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Mississippi State University Box 9690 Mississippi State Mississippi 39762 USA
| | - Kyle P. McCarthy
- Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology University of Delaware 531 South College Avenue Newark Delaware 19716 USA
| | - Joseph E. Rogerson
- Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife 6180 Hay Point Landing Road Smyrna Delaware 19977 USA
| | - Jacob L. Bowman
- Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology University of Delaware 531 South College Avenue Newark Delaware 19716 USA
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