Thesis Abstracts 2003
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A Comparison of Two Woodland Caribou Subpopulations on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range
By: Kristen Glinka M. Sc. (Environmental)
Supervisor: Dr. K.A.M. Creber
Abstract
Due to low reproduction and high mortality, the woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR) are considered a threatened species according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Woodland caribou have been shown to generally avoid linear features, which have also been shown to be a rapid travel route for wolves, the primary predator for woodland caribou on the CLAWR.
The CLAWR is approximately 11 700 km2 and encompasses two provinces: Saskatchewan and Alberta. Two of the primary activities on the CLAWR are military training exercises, which involves low level flying target practice, and oil extraction. Presently, two subpopulations of woodland caribou exist on the Range. One is in an area of high development (Alberta) and the other is in an area of low development (Saskatchewan). The 34 woodland caribou, 17 in each subpopulation, were located using radio-telemetry approximately once a month, over a three year period, from 1998 until 2001. Ikonos imagery was acquired in 1999, and compared to a map of the CLAWR to determine and define 6 different types of linear features namely roads to well sites, pipelines, seismic lines, frequently used well sites, infrequently used well sites, and military targets.
The two subpopulations of woodland caribou were compared in two ways: first they were compared spatially, using minimum convex polygon home ranges, and using nearest-neighbor analysis; secondly, a general linearized model was used to establish if either subpopulation was comparatively avoiding linear features. Minimum convex polygon home ranges were approximately 2.7 times significantly larger in the Alberta subpopulation over all years. R values for the nearest-neighbor analysis were found to be comparatively smaller for the Saskatchewan subpopulation over all years, but were not significantly different from 2000 until 2001. Results from the generalized linear model demonstrate that the Alberta subpopulation does not avoid or remain closer to terrain features than the Saskatchewan subpopulation. Overall, results show that the Alberta subpopulation of woodland caribou is more dispersed then the Saskatchewan subpopulation of woodland caribou.
