Security areas for elk during archery and rifle hunting seasons

Dustin H Ranglack,Jodie E Canfield,Robert A Garrott,Jay Rotella,Kelly M Proffitt,Justin A Gude

doi:10.1002/jwmg.21258

Dustin H Ranglack, Jodie E Canfield + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.21258

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Abstract

ABSTRACTFall elk (Cervus canadensis) habitat management on public lands provides security areas for reasonable elk survival and hunter opportunity. The management focus of maintaining or improving security areas, combined with conservative harvest regulations, may explain why some elk populations have increased in the western United States. However, in areas that include lands that restrict public hunter access, elk may alter their space use patterns during the hunting season by increasing use of areas that restrict public hunter access rather than using security areas on adjacent public lands. We used global positioning system location data from 325 adult female elk in 9 southwest Montana populations to determine resource selection during the archery and rifle hunting seasons. We found that during the archery season, in order of decreasing strength of selection, elk selected for areas that restricted access to public hunters, had greater time‐integrated normalized difference vegetation index values, had higher canopy cover, were farther from motorized routes, and had lower hunter effort. During the rifle season, in order of decreasing strength of selection, elk selected for areas that restricted access to public hunters, were farther from motorized routes, had higher canopy cover, and had higher hunter effort. Interactions among several covariates revealed dependencies in elk resource selection patterns. Further, cross‐population analyses revealed increased elk avoidance of motorized routes with increasing hunter effort during both the archery and rifle hunting seasons. We recommend managing for areas with ≥13% canopy cover that are ≥2,760 m from motorized routes, and identifying and managing for areas of high nutritional resources within these areas to create security areas on public lands during archery season. During the rifle season, we recommend managing for areas with ≥9% canopy cover that are ≥1,535 m from motorized routes, and are ≥20.23 km2. Lastly, given increased elk avoidance of motorized routes with higher hunter effort, we recommend that to maintain elk on public lands, managers consider increasing the amount of security in areas that receive high hunter effort, or hunting seasons that limit hunter effort in areas of high motorized route densities. © 2017 The Authors. Journal of Wildlife Management Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Highlights

Fall elk (Cervus canadensis) habitat management on public lands provides security areas for reasonable elk survival and hunter opportunity
We used 57,282 archery season and 47,602 rifle season elk locations collected from 325 individual elk in our analyses
Our results suggest that elk habitat management during hunting seasons should focus on hunter access, hunter effort, canopy cover, and motorized routes

Summary

Introduction

Fall elk (Cervus canadensis) habitat management on public lands provides security areas for reasonable elk survival and hunter opportunity. In order of decreasing strength of selection, elk selected for areas that restricted access to public hunters, were farther from motorized routes, had higher canopy cover, and had higher hunter effort. Traditional fall elk security area management on public land is based on managing motorized routes and hiding cover This concept was first formalized by Hillis et al (1991) based on work conducted during the rifle hunting season on elk that occupied relatively continuous conifer forests in western Montana. Elk distribution shifts from publicly accessible to restricted access lands, whether the result of short-term changes in hunting pressure (Millspaugh et al 2000, Proffitt et al 2010) or long-term behavioral adaptations (Boyce 1991), is a major challenge to wildlife and land managers as they attempt to maintain elk populations at socially acceptable levels while meeting public demand for hunting opportunities (Haggerty and Travis 2006). Differences in hunter pressure during rifle and archery seasons and differences in topography and elk migratory behavior have been suggested to explain the differences among the selections made by different populations (Conner et al 2001, Proffitt et al 2013)

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