Balancing the needs of capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) and moose (Alces alces) in large-scale human land use

• Published in: European Journal of Wildlife Research
• Language: English
• Published: Springer-Verlag 2010
• Subjects: Forestry; Game management; Landscape ecology; Macroecology; Wildlife triangle; Saija; Alces alces; Northern Finland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2262/42012; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-009-0306-z

Abstract The capercaillie has been negatively affected by the loss of mature forests. However, forestry creates young plantations offering a superabundant food supply for moose. Using two spatial scales, we tested whether the landscape-level environmental requirements of the capercaillie and moose differ. We compared the spatial association between the abundances of the two species in 50-???50-km grids and, using a set of regression models, analyzed how it was affected by various land use variables in five regions of Finland. Both species were generally most abundant in the same grid cells. Moreover, the association between abundance and several landscape variables was very similar for both species. Forest cover had a positive impact on both species in Eastern and South-Western Finland. Only in Western Finland was the capercaillie more positively associated with older forest than the moose. Human impact variables were negatively related to both capercaillie and moose abundance in Eastern and South-Western Finland, the effect being stronger for capercaillie. In Northern Finland, human impact turned positive. Our results highlight that, on broad landscape and regional scales, we might not need to make trade-offs in management decisions concerning capercaillie and moose. While considering regional land use planning, the primary goal for both species seems to be to secure large areas of forest, preferably at a distance from human settlement. phone: [phone] (Sirkia, Saija) [e-mail] (Sirkia, Saija) Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki - P.O. Box 65 - FI-00014 - Helsinki - FINLAND (Sirkia, Saija) Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute - P.O. Box 2 - FI-00791 - Helsinki - FINLAND (Sirkia, Saija) Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute - P.O. Box 2 - FI-00791 - Helsinki - FINLAND (Pellikka, Jani) Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Joensuu - P.O. Box 111 - FI-80101 - Joensuu - FINLAND (Pellikka, Jani) Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute - P.O. Box 2 - FI-00791 - Helsinki - FINLAND (Linden, Harto) FINLAND Registration: 2009-07-27 Received: 2008-07-15 Revised: 2009-06-23 Accepted: 2009-07-26 ePublished: 2009-08-26