Spatial Distribution and Landscape Associations of Large-Antlered Deer

For more than a century, the Boone and Crockett Club has kept records of harvest locations for 38 categories of North American big game, which includes measurement details and sizes of enduring characteristics (e.g., antlers, skulls, horns). All white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) entered in...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of wildlife management 2019-11, Vol.83 (8), p.1762-1772
Main Authors: CAIN, REBECCA L., SNOW, NATHAN P., CRAWFORD, JOANNE C., WILLIAMS, DAVID M., PORTER, WILLIAM F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antlers
Bayesian analysis
Deer
Habitat Relations
harvest data
Horns
Information management
Land cover
landscape configuration
large antlers
Midwest
Odocoileus virginianus
Productivity
record deer
soil productivity
Soils
Spatial distribution
white‐tailed deer
Wildlife
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:For more than a century, the Boone and Crockett Club has kept records of harvest locations for 38 categories of North American big game, which includes measurement details and sizes of enduring characteristics (e.g., antlers, skulls, horns). All white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) entered in the Club records (i.e., record deer) have large antlers because the measurements must meet or exceed a minimum size to qualify for entry. We used the records from the Club to test the hypothesis that the spatial distribution in the harvest of record deer was related to the number of antlered deer harvested, variations in land productivity, soil mineral content, and attributes of land cover for 9 states in the midwestern United States. We used a Bayesian theoretical framework to develop a spatial model that examined the influence of explanatory variables on the number of record deer harvested in each county. In our study area, 3,658 record deer were harvested in 692 of the 856 counties (80.8%). More record deer were harvested in counties that had more high-contrast edges, less contiguous land cover, and greater variation in soil productivity. These results provide information for managers and hunters to better understand the spatial distribution of record deer and factors that are correlated with their distribution.
ISSN:0022-541X
1937-2817
DOI:10.1002/jwmg.21763