Seasonal movements of satellite-collared caribou from the Bathurst herd Final Report to the West Kitikmeot Slave Study Society Submitted By Anne Gunn
this report. 56 We recorded a similar pattern in winter movement rates as reported by Thomas et al. (1994) for the Beverly herd based on mapping distribution. Movement rates slowed as snow depth increased by mid-December but unlike Thomas et al. (1994), we did not have snow measurements from the win...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.15.3381 http://www.wkss.nt.ca/HTML/08%5FProjectsReports/PDF/SeasonalMovementsFinal.pdf |
| Summary: | this report. 56 We recorded a similar pattern in winter movement rates as reported by Thomas et al. (1994) for the Beverly herd based on mapping distribution. Movement rates slowed as snow depth increased by mid-December but unlike Thomas et al. (1994), we did not have snow measurements from the winter range. We could only characterize the winters relative to long-term average maximum snow depths based on DIAND surveys for snow-water equivalence. The Talston River basin (south east of Great Slave Lake) tends to have more snow than the Snare or Yellowknife Basin but this pattern was reversed for late winter 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2000. The relationship between fall-rut distribution which is a time of high rates of weekly movements and subsequent winter distribution is unclear as is the influence of the timing of freeze-up and snowfall. We did record, however, that the 1997 shift to the winter distribution to south of Great Slave Lake coincided with a warm fall in 1997 with relatively little snow and a later freeze-up. The analysis for the duration and rate of movement during spring migration to the calving grounds suggests two general patterns in trends of movement rates as a function of distance from calving ground. In 1996 and 1997 rates are initially faster then decrease then increase as distance from calving ground approaches. However, the low sample size limits the analysis. This problem may have partially precluded the fitting of autoregressive models to the data, and may have obscured finer scale trends in movement rates. Therefore, trends should be interpreted both in terms of biological as well as statistical significance. One potential method to confront the problem of low sample sizes would be to use individuals as the sample unit rather than the herd. However,. |
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