GENERAL39654

• Permit No: C1981071
• IBM Index Class Name: General Documents
• Doc Date: 1/8/1986
• Doc Name: Vol. I ELK CALVING BEHAVIOR STUDY 1985 COMPLETION REPORT
• Permit Index Doc Type: WILDLIFE
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

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mornings and the last 1-1/2 hours of light in the evenings. The purpose of
these flights was to conduct cow/calf counts on three impacted sites (Colorado
' Yampa Coal Company, Mine 1; Seneca, Mine II; Pittsburg Midway, Edna Mine) and
four control sites (Middle Creek, Quarry Mountain, Thorpe Mountain, Dunckley
' Flat Tops and Little Flat Tops). Each area was flown on two separate days.
' Calving Home Range Fidelity
In order to determine what fidelity elk exhibit for calving areas and
' make statistical comparisons between elk using mine areas and control areas,
home ranges for each elk were determined using Mohr's (1947) minimum convex
' polygon method. Two different home ranges were calculated for each elk. Ob-
servations between May 15 and June 30 were used to delineate the general
calving home range. Data gathered from May 25 to June 15 were utilized to
' identify the refined calving home range. These home ranges were then used to
estimate year to year fidelity by planimetering the amount of overlap between
' home ranges in consecutive years. The area of overlap was then divided by the
smallest of the two overlapping home ranges to give a relative percent
' overlap.
' As
t
" another index to
Di
d Ch fidelity, centers of activities ("arithmetic mean
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1975
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1980
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culated for each calving home range. The distance between year to year
' calving home range activity centers was then measured.
' Analysis of variance and Duncan's multiple range test were then used to
determine differences (in home range size, relative percent overlap, and dis-
tance between activity centers) between elk using mine sites and control
areas. Analyses were run on an IBM using the Statistical Analysis System
' (SAS) computer programs. Significant levels used were d = 0.05.
Habitat Utilization
1 Vegetation maps were prepared as described in the 1983 annual report.
' Transmitter collared elk locations and calving home ranges were then placed on
vegetation maps. Utilization was then determined by calculating the percen-
tage of locations within each vegetation type. Habitat selection was then
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