Vol. 25, No. 4 
Page 5 
group together in fall and winter to spread predation risk throughout the group. 
The thermoregulatory needs of deer in severe winter weather also influence the 
choice of landscapes for group living. 
Today in Illinois, the wolf is gone, few winters are severe, and digestible 
calories exist nearly everywhere. Yet the social patterns and movements shown 
by our marked sample of deer in Piatt County mimic those reported for northern 
deer. We are having difficulty following several generations of deer because of 
high predation by humans, but many of those we have managed to monitor throughout 
an annual cycle exhibit fidelity to summer and winter ranges. Perhaps because 
winter weather is relatively mild, not all deer migrate or disperse each year; 
females seem most likely to use the same landscape, either by remaining on the 
same range or by migrating. It is also possible that selection is beginning to 
favor those deer and their progeny who remain on secure refuges; they are more 
likely to produce offspring that survive to breed than those who disperse to 
small wood lots. We need more information to determine if all or most of the 
female young of those females who do not disperse also stay close to their 
mother’s range. We have several mother-daughter groups marked and we will 
closely monitor their movement patterns in the coming months. 
Cooperative Waterfowl Research - W-88-R 
F.C. Bellrose, S.P. Havera, 
G.A. Perkins, H.K. Archer 
A natural resource inventory requires a classification system. A classifi¬ 
cation scheme most suitable for describing waterfowl habitat in Illinois would 
be a system (1) that can accurately describe the types of wetlands in Illinois, 
(2) that can group ecologically similar habitats so that value judgments may be 
made from collateral data on waterfowl populations, (3) whose concepts and 
terminology are broad enough to allow uniform comparisons with flyway and 
national habitat resource, and (*0 whose products can be refined and updated. 
Of the existing wetland classifications, only 2 are applicable for the 
entire country--that developed by Martin et al. (1953, USFWS Spec. Sci. Rep, 
Wildl. 20) and the recent system designed for the National Wetlands Inventory 
(Cowardin et al. 1979, FWS/OBS-79/31)• Numerous regional classification systems 
for wetlands and deepwater habitats were reviewed but none fully satisfied our 
criteria. 
The recently developed system by Cowardin et al. (1979) was found t© be 
superior to that designed by Martin et al. (1953)* The older system is a 
single-level classification composed of 20 types. The inherent lack of detail 
in this system has resulted in misclassifications and regional differences in 
wetland definitions. The newer system is hierarchial, thus allowing for 
systematic association and disassociation of large amounts of data. Data 
collection starts at the top of the hierarchy and proceeds downward with 
increasing detail depending on the resolution desired. If more detail is needed 
at a later date, the hierarchy can be continued without duplication of previous 
effort. 
