Summer spatial ecology of woodland caribou across northern Ontario ...

• Main Author: Walker, Philip
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: University of Alberta Library 2023
• Subjects: Rangifer tarandus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7939/r3-2r8s-cq77; https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/51d3c670-2df6-414f-9195-aa28166689e6

Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) numbers continue to decline across their circumpolar range with boreal woodland caribou (R. t. caribou; hereafter caribou) listed as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. Given this conservation concern, evaluating the factors influencing reproductive success of caribou is key to developing management strategies. Survival of adult females and their calves is a function of behavioural responses that individuals make across varying spatiotemporal conditions. I evaluated calving behaviours of female caribou across three northern Ontario study regions (Pickle Lake, Nakina, and Cochrane). I first identified caribou parturition and 5-week neonatal mortality using a movement-based approach, which was validated based on footage from 22 video-collared caribou. Across regions, 76% of 107 caribou-years indicated birth events with differences in median birth date of one week later in Cochrane (23 May) than in Pickle Lake (17 May) and Nakina (16 May), which indicate possible ...