Fine-scale Habitat Use Related to Crop Depredation by Female White-tailed Deer in an Agricultural Landscape
Author | : |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : |
Release | : 2003 |
ISBN-10 | : OCLC:54763024 |
ISBN-13 | : |
Rating | : 4/5 ( Downloads) |
Download or read book Fine-scale Habitat Use Related to Crop Depredation by Female White-tailed Deer in an Agricultural Landscape written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is the most popular game animal in the United States but is also responsible for a large amount of damage to agricultural crops. Understanding how deer use agricultural landscapes on a small scale will facilitate management. Global Positioning System (GPS) telemetry collars were attached to 16 female white-tailed deer at Chesapeake Farms, Kent County, Maryland, during 2 summer growing seasons (10 in 2001 and 6 in 2002). Twelve collars collected usable data and collar success averaged 90 and 86 percent in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Mean adaptive kernel home-range sizes (25.22 ha in 2001 and 39.36 ha in 2002) did not differ between years (p = 0.14). Mean core areas (3.12 ha in 2001 and 6.28 ha in 2002) were larger in 2002 (p = 0.04). A habitat selection analysis was performed to determine which habitats were selected more or less than others during the soybean growing season. Habitat use pooled across all deer was different from random in both years (p