Mule Deer Migration Corridors - Doyle - 2016-2019 [ds2909]

The methodology used for this migration analysis allowed for the mapping of winter ranges and the identification and prioritization of migration corridors. Brownian Bridge Movement Models (BBMMs; Sawyer et al. 2009) were constructed with GPS collar data from 14 migrating deer, including 44 migration sequences, location, date, time, and average location error as inputs in Migration Mapper. The average migration time and average migration distance for deer was 6.47 days and 27.37 km, respectively.

Corridors and stopovers were prioritized based on the number of animals moving through a particular area. BBMMs were produced at a spatial resolution of 50 m using a sequential fix interval of less than 27 hours and a fixed motion variance of 1000. Winter range analyses were based on data from 14 individual deer and 25 wintering sequences using a fixed motion variance of 1000.

Winter range designations for this herd may expand with a larger sample, filling in some of the gaps between winter range polygons in the map. Large water bodies were clipped from the final outputs. Corridors are visualized based on deer use per cell, with greater than or equal to 1 deer and greater than or equal to 3 deer (20% of the sample) representing migration corridors and high use corridors, respectively.

Stopovers were calculated as the top 10 percent of the population level utilization distribution during migrations and can be interpreted as high use areas. Stopover polygon areas less than 20,000 m 2 were removed, but remaining small stopovers may be interpreted as short-term resting sites, likely based on a small concentration of points from an individual animal. Winter range is visualized as the 50 th percentile contour of the winter range utilization distribution.