Space-use and Movement of Canada Geese in Response to Hunting Pressure and Anthropogenic Land Use
Open Access
- Author:
- Brzezinski, Karen
- Graduate Program:
- Ecology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- August 07, 2023
- Committee Members:
- Frances E Buderman, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jason C Keagy, Committee Member
Jason Kaye, Program Head/Chair
Matthew R. Marshall, Committee Member
Nathaniel R. Huck, Special Signatory - Keywords:
- landscape ecology
movement ecology
waterfowl
game species
animal behavior
habitat selection - Abstract:
- The North American landscape has changed drastically over the last century through the conversion of wetlands, grasslands, and forests to intensive agriculture and urban development to meet human needs. Increased human use of the landscape affects wildlife’s access to resources, behavior, and survival. Understanding wildlife behavior in relation to direct and indirect anthropogenic disturbance is necessary to develop appropriate and effective land use policies, management regulations, and conservation plans. The direct effects of anthropogenic disturbance can result from human recreation activities, such as ecotourism, wherein species tend to increase vigilance, stress hormones, and flight distance when humans are present. Anthropogenic disturbance affects wildlife indirectly through land conversion, which can disconnect habitats, thwart dispersal, and limit population size and range. However, some species have managed to thrive in human-dominated landscapes, like waterfowl that take advantage of fallow croplands and turfgrass monocultures for reliable food sources. For prey species, predation avoidance exerts a strong influence on behavior and space use. The landscape of fear describes an individual’s cognitive map that incorporates perceived cyclical temporal and spatial variations in predation risk across the landscape. Further, the predation risk allocation hypothesis suggests that animals allocate feeding and anti-predator efforts variably in response to predation risk, trading-off between foraging and vigilance behavior based on perceived risk. Prey species may also perceive some sources of anthropogenic disturbance as a component of the landscape of fear. For example, a grouse species in Europe (Tetrao urogallus) exhibited decreased activity in suitable habitats with higher levels of recreation. For game species, hunters are part of an animal’s landscape of fear. Hunting pressure has direct impacts on individuals through harvest and may have indirect impacts on behavior, such as changes in movement rates, habitat preference, and decreased foraging efficiency that reduces body condition. Hunting-related changes in activity and space-use patterns have been documented in a variety of species and environmental settings. In ungulate populations, researchers have observed hunting-related increases in movement rates with no corresponding changes in habitat selection, and it has been suggested that the magnitude of response is related to variation in exposure to risk. Many waterfowl species have also demonstrated measurable but inconsistent changes in landscape use and activity in response to hunting. For example, studies showed that hunting, whether from fixed (e.g., stationary blind) or mobile (e.g., boat) points prompted waterfowl to leave a site immediately but did not decrease overall abundance at the site. Providing waterfowl with access to undisturbed refuges has been identified as an effective management tool to buffer the effects of anthropogenic disturbance, and waterfowl have been shown to move to refuges during the hunting season. Waterfowl’s response to anthropogenic disturbance, including hunting, has been studied across a wide range of species and regions, often using direct observation or low-frequency tracking, which has limited the scope of inference. However, management of waterfowl remains a key focus of many hunter-affiliated conservation organizations and government agencies, and additional research using modern techniques is necessary for effective population management. Importantly, despite hunter retention and recruitment decreasing in recent decades, hunting remains a primary source of funding for state and federal wildlife conservation and management programs. In Pennsylvania, hunting-related purchases contribute one billion dollars to gross domestic product annually. Goose hunting in Pennsylvania accounts for a large portion of goose hunting in the eastern U.S. Geese (Anser spp and Branta spp.) harvested in Pennsylvania comprise approximately 20% of geese harvested within the Atlantic Flyway. The Pennsylvania Game Commission operates Wildlife Management Areas, which are specifically managed to create hunting opportunities and increase game species by providing quality breeding and foraging habitat and undisturbed areas of refuge. Two management-related goals of this study were to understand how resident Canada geese (Branta canadensis) move across the landscape during the hunting season and which habitat characteristics support nesting and foraging year-round, which can guide management decisions that maximize both goose abundance and hunting opportunities. Further, we aimed to expand our understanding of the landscape of fear by evaluating how this game species navigates the trade-off between threats and resources during the hunting season. By fitting resource selection functions and hidden Markov models to analyze fine-scale telemetry data from non-migratory geese that use carefully managed hunting areas, we will improve our understanding of Canada goose movement and habitat use with respect to hunting disturbance. The results will not only provide information about effective population management, but also provide insights into behavioral adaptations for predator avoidance.