Elk Behaviour - Choice of Terrain

[BrowTines]

Here is a summary of an elk study here in Southern Alberta but no doubt the results would be similar across North America:

http://globalnews.ca/news/3529525/femal ... ers-study/

Here is a link to the study:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0178082

A few highlights (most information we know as hunters):

With age, females increase their use of rugged terrain close to roads. Females generally decrease their use of forest cover as they become older, although they significantly increase the use of forest when close to roads, exactly where and when the likelihood of being spotted by hunters would be highest. Thus, elk learn to differentiate risks associated with roads compared to areas farther from roads. All these results are in agreement with the strategy adopted by this population to successfully avoid human hunters

However, when it comes to their response to hunters, they change their behaviours in a uniform way (decreased movement rate, increased use of forest and rugged terrain).

As introduced earlier, human hunting pressure on elk is much higher on males than females. This means that the likelihood for certain behavioural traits selected by humans (namely bold individuals) to occur is higher among older females compared to older males. On the one hand there is a strong selection by hunters on male behavioural traits [9] where”bold” individuals are more likely to get shot, and high hunting mortality limits the chances for bold individuals to survive and learn how to cope with hunters

The likelihood that a female elk will be shot by a hunter decreases markedly with age [9, 23], with female elk becoming almost invulnerable to human hunters when older than 9–10 y.o

Older females increased their use of rugged terrain during the hunting season, and this was recorded to a greater extent during the bow season than during the rifle season (Fig 2, S3 Table). Older females also increased their use of rugged terrain close to roads (Fig 3, S3 Table) especially during dawn and dusk (Fig 4, S3 Table). Finally, females generally decreased their use of forest as they became older, except when they were close to roads, where they increased the use of forest

[saddlesore]

I wonder how much money they spent on that study when they could have asked any seasoned hunter or group of hunters.

Quoted::A few highlights (most information we know as hunters)

[Lefty]

I wonder how much money they spent on that study when they could have asked any seasoned hunter or group of hunters,,,,,,,or]

The same scholars I ran into cutting tmber in the forest at 8200 feet
"Creating" sage grouse habitat B