Seasonal Responses of Mule Deer and Pronghorn to Energy Development

Seasonal Responses of Mule Deer and Pronghorn to Energy Development
Author: Mallory Sandoval Lambert
Publisher:
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2021
Genre: Mule deer
ISBN:

Human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC) underlies the Anthropocene. One principal difference between present-day and historical environmental change is the pace and scale. Just 300 years ago, 95% of Earth’s ice-free land was considered wildlands or semi-natural. Today, almost ~55% of ice-free land has been converted for human uses. This poses a challenge for animals, who must move through landscapes to eat, mate, and escape from predators. Indeed, this rapid rate of landscape change has likely not been experienced by animals in their evolutionary past. Further, animals that rely on long-term memory of past environmental conditions are struggling to track environmental change. In this thesis, I examined two key gaps in knowledge in how animals respond to HIREC. First, I assessed how the movement mechanism (oriented versus memory-based) an animal employs influences its response to HIREC (Chapter 1). Second, I assessed how responses develop over time while HIREC is occurring (Chapter 2). I used long-term datasets from 183 collared mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and 89 pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) that migrate through and winter on a natural gas field in western Wyoming to carry out this work. Mule deer and pronghorn rely on memory-based movements during their up to 200 km migrations and on oriented movements while on their smaller and constrained winter ranges. Mule deer use strong spatial memory during migration and have extremely high fidelity to their migration routes. Pronghorn, in contrast, are more plastic and tend to change whether and where they migrate from year to year. We evaluated responses to surface disturbance (native habitat converted to roads and well pads) using habitat use and selection analyses across three spatial scales during winter and migration periods. While using memory-based movements during migration, both species were reluctant to abandon traditional migratory routes until a disturbance threshold was surpassed, after which they avoided HIREC. For pronghorn, thresholds ranged from 1-9% surface disturbance, whereas mule deer thresholds were consistently ~3%. In contrast to the migratory responses, both species avoided HIREC across a gradient of low-high amounts of HIREC while using oriented movements on winter range. Once these overall responses were established, I then assessed whether they changed or remained constant over time (Chapter 2). Animal populations may have immediate responses to HIREC or they may develop a response over time, resulting in a time-lag between the onset of HIREC and a population’s response. With immediate responses, it is likely that individual behavioral plasticity is the underlying mechanism of a population’s response to HIREC. For time lags, it is likely that natural selection acts on personalities within a given population. Using the mule deer dataset only, I fit resource selection functions (RSF) using a Generalized Additive Mixed Model (GAMM) to evaluate temporal trends in the behavioral response to the natural gas development during both migration and while on winter range. At the population level for both migration and winter range, mule deer exhibited a time-lag response to HIREC (i.e., natural gas development). During migration, during the first 8 years of this study, mule deer avoided development only after a threshold of development was surpassed and this threshold varied from year to year. Following the 8-year lag, mule deer consistently avoided development year to year once development surpassed a ~2% threshold. For winter range, during the first 9 years, mule deer responses to development varied year to year, although they mainly avoided development. Following the 9-year lag, the avoidance of development became stronger and more consistent. At the individual level for both migration and winter range, mule deer collared for > 1 year avoided development and their response to development did not change over subsequent years, suggesting little behavioral plasticity in this population. Overall, my work demonstrates that responses to HIREC by moving animals can be non-linear, are mediated by the movement mechanism animals are primarily relying on, and may not be consistent and strong until years after the onset of landscape change. Additionally, the disturbance thresholds identified herein for mule deer and pronghorn provide land and wildlife managers in western Wyoming with specific, actionable targets that can help to maintain the ecological function of migration routes and winter ranges. Energy development is, and will continue to be, a major source of disturbance for migratory ungulates, and other sagebrush obligate species, in western North America. An estimated 800,000 km2 of land is projected to be converted for energy extraction by the year 2040. Because this and other forms of land development will continue, it is increasingly important to understand how, when, to what degree, and over what time-scale animals respond to human disturbance so that potential impacts can be minimized.

Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America

Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America
Author: David E. Naugle
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2012-06-22
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1610910222

Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America offers a road map for securing our energy future while safeguarding our heritage. Contributors show how science can help craft solutions to conflicts between wildlife and energy development by delineating core areas, identifying landscapes that support viable populations, and forecasting future development scenarios to aid in conservation design. The book frames the issue and introduces readers to major types of extraction quantifies the pace and extent of current and future energy development provides an ecological foundation for understanding cumulative impacts on wildlife species synthesizes information on the biological response of wildlife to development discusses energy infrastructure as a conduit for the spread of invasive species compares impacts of alternative energy to those of conventional development The final section calls for a shift away from site-level management that has failed to mitigate cumulative impacts on wildlife populations toward broad-scale planning and implementation of conservation in priority landscapes. The book concludes by identifying ways that decision makers can remove roadblocks to conservation, and provides a blueprint for implementing conservation plans. Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America is a must-have volume for elected officials, industry representatives, natural resource managers, conservation groups, and the public seeking to promote energy independence while at the same time protecting wildlife.

Long-term Effects of Energy Development on Winter Distribution and Residency of Pronghorn in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Long-term Effects of Energy Development on Winter Distribution and Residency of Pronghorn in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Author: Hall Sawyer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 11
Release: 2019
Genre: Antelope
ISBN:

An increasing global demand for energy assures continued disturbance to previously undeveloped landscapes, but understanding broader impacts to wildlife remains elusive. Among groups of species most vulnerable to habitat disruption are those requiring large tracts of land. Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) are an obligate to the open plains and basins that, similar to other transcontinental large herbivores, rely primarily on habitats where development of energy resources such as oil, natural gas, coal, wind, and solar are intensifying. To understand behavioral response to a burgeoning energy development project, we evaluated avoidance, displacement, and winter residency patterns of pronghorn in the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem across a 15-year period using 171 collared individuals. Distance from natural gas well pads increased through time and was concurrent with declines in winter residency. Between 2005 and 2017, we found that (a) pronghorn avoidance of well pads likely increased by 408 m, (b) the overall displacement of pronghorn relative to well pads in the final year of study increased by 800 m, (c) the time pronghorn spent in the study area was reduced by 22% (nearly 1 month), and (d) the percentage of pronghorn leaving the study area increased by 57%. Such directional changes signal a strong behavioral response of an open-plain obligate to energy infrastructure, and together, these metrics indicate that pronghorn response to energy development involves both avoidance of infrastructure and partial abandonment of their traditional winter ranges. While comparable long-term data sets are generally unavailable for other functionally equivalent ungulate groups in similar ecological topographies of Asia, Africa, and South America, our study may serve as a reasonable surrogate and highlights that behavioral changes elicited from energy development which at first appear subtle can proliferate and may portend demographic consequences.

Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation

Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation
Author: Christopher E. Moorman
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1421432730

Brings together disparate conversations about wildlife conservation and renewable energy, suggesting ways these two critical fields can work hand in hand. Renewable energy is often termed simply "green energy," but its effects on wildlife and other forms of biodiversity can be quite complex. While capturing renewable resources like wind, solar, and energy from biomass can require more land than fossil fuel production, potentially displacing wildlife habitat, renewable energy infrastructure can also create habitat and promote species health when thoughtfully implemented. The authors of Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation argue that in order to achieve a balanced plan for addressing these two crucially important sustainability issues, our actions at the nexus of these fields must be directed by current scientific information related to the ecological effects of renewable energy production. Synthesizing an extensive, rapidly growing base of research and insights from practitioners into a single, comprehensive resource, contributors to this volume • describe processes to generate renewable energy, focusing on the Big Four renewables—wind, bioenergy, solar energy, and hydroelectric power • review the documented effects of renewable energy production on wildlife and wildlife habitats • consider current and future policy directives, suggesting ways industrial-scale renewables production can be developed to minimize harm to wildlife populations • explain recent advances in renewable power technologies • identify urgent research needs at the intersection of renewables and wildlife conservation Relevant to policy makers and industry professionals—many of whom believe renewables are the best path forward as the world seeks to meet its expanding energy needs—and wildlife conservationists—many of whom are alarmed at the rate of renewables-related habitat conversion—this detailed book culminates with a chapter underscoring emerging opportunities in renewable energy ecology. Contributors: Edward B. Arnett, Brian B. Boroski, Regan Dohm, David Drake, Sarah R. Fritts, Rachel Greene, Steven M. Grodsky, Amanda M. Hale, Cris D. Hein, Rebecca R. Hernandez, Jessica A. Homyack, Henriette I. Jager, Nicole M. Korfanta, James A. Martin, Christopher E. Moorman, Clint Otto, Christine A. Ribic, Susan P. Rupp, Jake Verschuyl, Lindsay M. Wickman, T. Bently Wigley, Victoria H. Zero

Pronghorn (Antilocapra Americana) Response to Wind Energy Development on Winter Range in South-central, Wyoming

Pronghorn (Antilocapra Americana) Response to Wind Energy Development on Winter Range in South-central, Wyoming
Author: Kaitlyn L. Taylor
Publisher:
Total Pages: 123
Release: 2014
Genre: Antelopes
ISBN: 9781321063394

In order to understand the potential impacts of wind energy development to pronghorn (Antilocapra americana ) on winter range, I evaluated the response of a wintering pronghorn population to the Dunlap Ranch wind energy facility over 3 winters in south-central Wyoming, USA. My objectives were to 1) evaluate displacement of pronghorn in relation to wind energy infrastructure components to identify changes in movement rates influenced by vicinity to wind energy development, 2) develop a resource selection function (RSF) for pronghorn exposed to wind energy at the population level to gain insights into winter resource selection on this landscape, 3) apply the overall best fit population level model to individuals with home ranges that overlapped wind energy to isolate potential avoidance behavior relative to each individual within its own home range, and 4) to identify environmental and anthropogenic predictor variables (inclusive of wind energy) influencing pronghorn mortality risk on winter range. In addition, I modeled resource selection and estimated survival for a neighboring population of pronghorn near Walcott Junction, Wyoming. Dunlap Ranch was developed for wind energy production in 2010 and was located approximately 11.8 km north of Medicine Bow, in Carbon County, Wyoming. I obtained location data from 47 female pronghorn equipped with GPS-transmitters at Dunlap Ranch. I modeled frequency of use as a continuous response variable to predict pronghorn resource selection across the Dunlap Ranch both at the population and individual levels. I estimated survival for pronghorn using the Kaplan-Meier product limit estimator. Finally, I modeled mortality risk for pronghorn at Dunlap Ranch using the Cox proportional hazards model inclusive of cumulative, weekly, and monthly temporal scales. At the population level, pronghorn at the Dunlap Ranch selected for areas closer to wind energy facilities and with lower slopes, standard deviation in snow depth, and density of fences. At the individual level, coefficients for distance to nearest wind energy facility did not differ from zero (P > 0.05) across all 3 winters, indicating no effect of wind energy development on pronghorn resource selection on winter range in my study area. In addition, pronghorn daily net displacement did not increase closer to wind energy development (r2 = 0.001-0.012) during each winter. Twenty-four pronghorn from the Dunlap Ranch study area died with the majority of deaths (n = 13 or 54.2% of deaths) occurring in winter 2010-2011. Overall, I did not detect an influence of wind energy development on pronghorn movement behavior, resource selection, or mortality risk at the Dunlap Ranch. Most avoidance behaviors documented in ungulate populations are associated with human presence and increased traffic. Lower traffic rates observed within the Dunlap Ranch paired with less overall length of access roads and less habitat developed than in oil and gas fields may explain why avoidance and increased movement rates were not observed in pronghorn. My results are valuable in providing guidance for wildlife managers considering future wind energy development on pronghorn winter range. For example, identifying sagebrush as influential for pronghorn winter mortality risk should lead to greater conservation of sagebrush stands in areas where development and pronghorn winter range coincide. My results also illustrate that fence densities and variability in snow depth are important contributors to habitat selection by wintering pronghorn in south-central Wyoming and must be considered when implementing further modifications (energy and other human developments) to these harsh environmental landscapes to minimize impacts to pronghorn. Regardless, caution must be taken when generalizing these results across pronghorn populations. Although pronghorn were not impacted negatively by wind energy on the Dunlap Ranch, my results cannot be directly applied to populations exposed to wind energy development at larger scales and on other seasonal ranges where traffic levels and environmental conditions may differ. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Wild Migrations

Wild Migrations
Author: Matthew J. Kauffman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780870719431

The migrations of Wyoming's hooved mammals--mule deer, pronghorn, elk, and moose--between their seasonal ranges are some of the longest and most noteworthy migrations on the North American continent. Wild Migrations presents the previously untold story of these migrations, combining wildlife science and cartography. Facing pages cover more than 50 migration topics, ranging from ecology to conservation and management, enriched by visually stunning graphics and maps, and an introductory essay by Emilene Ostlind.