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Migration Routes of Elk in Clarks Fork, Wyoming

Elk within the Clarks Fork herd migrate though some of the most rugged and remote terrain in the lower 48 states. The herd, which numbers around 3,000, winters in the Sunlight Basin and the Absaroka foothills just west of Cody, WY. Winter ranges are a mix of sagebrush hills and lodgepole pine forests, within expansive private ranchlands. During migration, animals travel an average one-way distance of 33 miles, with some animals migrating as far as 67 miles. Spring migrations off of winter range head west towards Yellowstone National Park, up several drainages that flow out of the Absaroka Mountains, including the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, Crandall Creek, and smaller creeks to the south. Summer ranges consist of alpine and subalpine meadows embedded within spruce-fir and lodgepole pine forest that are predominately within the Park. The Clarks Fork herd is partially migratory, with migrants and resident animals mixing on winter range (residents tend to winter along the foothills further east). Over the last decade, the migratory segment has seen poor recruitment due to drought and increased rates of predation by grizzly bears and wolves, while resident animals have been more productive and continue to expand to the east. Aside from the poor recruitment, the migrations are relatively safe because most of the routes traverse lands within the National Forest or National Park system. These data provide the location of winter ranges for elk (Bison bison) in Yellowstone National Park. They were developed from Brownian bridge movement models using 107 winter sequences collected from a sample size of 46 animals comprising GPS locations collected every 2-8 hours.

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Author(s) Matthew J Kauffman orcid, Holly Copeland, Eric Cole, Matt Cuzzocreo, Sarah Dewey, Julien Fattebert, Jeff Gagnon, Emily Gelzer, Tabitha A Graves orcid, Kent Hersey, Rusty Kaiser, James Meacham, Jerod A. Merkle, Arthur Middleton, Tristan Nunez, Brendan Oates, Daniel Olson, Lucas Olson, Hall Sawyer, Cody Schroeder, Scott Sprague, Alethea Steingisser, Mark Thonhoff
Publication Date 2020-11-09
Beginning Date of Data 2016-01-01
Ending Date of Data 2019-01-01
Data Contact
Arthur Middleton
DOI https://doi.org/10.5066/P9O2YM6I
Citation Kauffman, M.J., Copeland, H., Cole, E., Cuzzocreo, M., Dewey, S., Fattebert, J., Gagnon, J., Gelzer, E., Graves, T.A., Hersey, K., Kaiser, R., Meacham, J., Merkle, J.A., Middleton, A., Nunez, T., Oates, B., Olson, D., Olson, L., Sawyer, H., Schroeder, C., Sprague, S., Steingisser, A., and Thonhoff, M., 2020, Migration Routes of Elk in Clarks Fork, Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9O2YM6I.
Metadata Contact
Arthur Middleton
Metadata Date 2020-11-09
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License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Harvest Source: ScienceBase
Harvest Date: 2021-11-19T04:42:53.907Z