CHAPTER 8 



HOME RANGE AND MOVEMENTS 



Home range characteristics were determined from 6 395 

 relocations of 135 radio-collared deer monitored during 1976- 

 1984. Eighty-three of those deer were first radio-collared as 

 newborn fawns; 30 of those also contributed home range 

 information as adult deer. The remaining 52 radio-collared 

 deer provided data on home range characteristics of adults. 

 A total of 76 individual adult females and 6 adult males 

 provided data for calculation of adult home ranges. 



Home range size and deer mobility were determined by 2 

 methods, the polygon home range (Mohr 1947) and average 

 activity radius (Robinette 1966). The polygon home range 

 (PHR) usually overstated home range size by including 

 non-habitat within home range boundaries, but had the 

 advantage of being a commonly used technique which facilitates 

 comparisons. We used PHR to estimate home range size rather 

 than various statistical methods because deer on this area did 

 not use the environment in a bivariately normal manner and 

 because statistical methods often "provide estimates that 

 distort and obscure real biological phenomena" (Smith 1983). 

 The average activity radius (AAR) was not a good measure of 

 home range size or shape (Jennrich and Turner 1969) but gave 

 a general measure of mobility by computing average distance of 

 relocations from a geographic activity center. 



Home range size was calculated for 5 time periods. Life 

 home range was calculated for 41 adult females and included 

 only those deer monitored for 2 4 months or more. Mean number 

 of relocations was 84.2 (range, 29-192) and mean number of 

 months of continuous data was 46 (range, 24-85). Correlation 

 analysis and plotted data indicated that once at least 29 

 relocations were made over a 24 month period, neither PHR nor 

 AAR significantly increased (P>0.05) as number of relocations 

 or number of months of observation increased. Once 24 months 

 of radio-relocations were obtained, all observations of those 

 deer were included in calculations of life home ranges, 

 including those made after the radio-transmitter ceased 

 functioning . 



Annual home ranges included relocations between 1 June 

 and 31 May (biological year) . Sixty-seven annual home ranges 

 were calculated for 36 females, and 6 were calculated for 5 

 adult males. Mean numbers of relocations for annual home 

 ranges were 28.7 (range, 19-50) and 25.0 (range, 16-32) for 

 adult females and adult males, respectively. Summer home 

 ranges for adult deer included observations from 1 May through 

 30 November. Ninety-nine summer home ranges were calculated 

 for 48 females and 7 for 5 adult males. The mean numbers of 



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