Elk Responses to Recreational Use and Habitat Potential in Michigan PDF Download

Author: Chad Ryan Williamson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The growing use of public lands for nature-based recreation has prompted a demand for research evaluating recreational use and its direct and indirect effects on wildlife populations and their habitat. Although a growing body of research has reported numerous negative effects that recreational use can have on wildlife resources, recent research has demonstrated that suitable habitat may mitigate the effects of human-wildlife interactions. In Michigan, the Pigeon River Country (PRC) and Atlanta (ASF) State Forests serve as the core range of Michigan's elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) herd. The PRC is a Special Management Unit that limits certain trail-based recreation types (e.g., equestrian use, mountain biking) to designated trails and prohibits some motorized vehicles (e.g., ORVs). Our primary goals were to examine the interactions among elk space-use and resource selection patterns, habitat suitability and potential, and summer trail-based recreation on public lands in the Michigan elk range. For our first objective, we developed habitat suitability index (HSI) and habitat potential models for elk within the Michigan elk range. Our HSI models indicated areas of high habitat suitability and potential for winter thermal cover, winter food, and spring food throughout the elk range. For our second objective, we quantified and compared the intensities and group sizes of common summer trail-based recreation types (i.e., equestrian use, hiking/foot-traffic, mountain biking, ORV use) at different temporal scales (i.e., year, month, day, hour) in the PRC and ASF. Recreation was monitored using trail cameras and we captured 11,412 recreation events during 263,664 hours of monitoring in the PRC, and 5,034 events during 266,184 hours in the ASF from May0́3October, 20160́32018. Greater recreational intensity was detected for all recreation types in both regions during September, weekends, and mid-day (11:000́316:59). The most frequently detected types of recreation were equestrian use (58.8% of events) in the PRC and ORV use (51.8% of events) in the ASF. Our third objective was to evaluate and compare space-use and resource selection patterns for Michigan elk in response to habitat suitability and the intensity of summer equestrian use, hiking, mountain biking, and ORV use at different temporal periods. Global positioning system (GPS) collars were placed on 27 cow and 26 bull elk from 20160́32018. Dynamic Brownian bridge movement models were used to quantify elk space-use patterns, and elk resource selection was modeled at landscape- and home range-scales. Elk home range sizes in May were 1.30́32.0 times greater (P