WINTER SURVIVAL AND HABITAT SELECTION OF TRANSLOCATED NORTHERN BOBWHITE IN THE NEW JERSEY PINE BARRENS
Date
2018-12
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) ecology has been well documented in its current range, but studies of reintroduced bobwhite are less common. New Jersey historically had bobwhite populations, but due to habitat loss, urbanization, and changed management techniques, they have likely gone extinct in the State. While bobwhite restoration efforts primarily focus on habitat management, translocation has been shown to be successful at restoring populations in certain circumstances. In this study, we translocated 80 birds from Georgia into managed forests in the New Jersey Pine Barrens April 2017. This was the third year of a four-year reintroduction effort. My goal was to compare bobwhite winter survival between sexes and estimate habitat selection between Oct 1- March 31, 2017–2018, on the remaining 18 that survived the breeding season. I used three-element Yagi antenna via the homing method, 2–3 times per week to estimate survival, home range, habitat use including the effects of basal area and canopy coverage density. I used Kaplan-Meier models to estimate survival [S = 0.500, (95% CI = 0.315- 0.794)]. I did not detect a difference in 182-day survival between sex (n = 18, X2 = 0.03, P = 0.87), age (n = 18, X2 = 1.37, P = 0.23), and site (n = 18, X2 = 0.79, P = 0.37). Due to a low sample size, however, it is difficult to assess survival rate differences in a specific class. I assessed covey habitat selection using 𝒳2 tests and forage ratio statistics and found the bobwhite positively selected for grassland (n = 5, 𝑥̅ = 6.94, SE = 5.63), managed pine (𝑥̅ = 3.92 SE = 2.45) and wooded wetland (n= 5, 𝑥̅ = 12.12, SE = 11.980). Covey 95% LSCV kernel home range’s averaged 9.13 ha (+/- 1.83 SE). For fourth order habitat selection, I found no difference between selected locations and random locations for canopy coverage (t = 0.66, P = 0.75) and basal area density (t=0.44, P = 0.78). Drawing definitive conclusions from our dataset is extremely difficult due to the low sample size, but still important to show potential trends to give base information to managers and researchers who want to implement a full-scale reintroduction of the bird. Providing as much habitat as possible in the form of thinning pine, burning, and planting native early successional species to give the birds the best chance of surviving at the northern portion of their range is quintessential.
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Keywords
Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, winter survival, northern Bobwhites, new jersey pinebarrens, habitat seletion