Long‐term effects of energy development on winter distribution and residency of pronghorn in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Sawyer, Hall; Beckmann, Jon P.; Seidler, Renee G.; Berger, Joël

doi:10.1111/csp2.83

Cited by 21 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(102 reference statements)

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“…For example, Green et al (2017) reported that between 1984 and 2008, there was a 2.5% annual reduction in lek attendance by sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) as a result of oil and gas facilities being placed adjacent to lekking areas, providing evidence of population-level effects of energy development. Although the scientific literature is replete with retrospective analyses of effects of industrial activities to wildlife (Northrup and Wittemyer 2013, Green et al 2017, Sawyer et al 2019) many negative consequences resulting from human actions could have been prevented or reduced with sufficient pre-development planning.…”

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confidence: 99%

Seismic Survey Design and Effects on Maternal Polar Bear Dens

Wilson

Durner

2019

J Wildl Manag

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Large‐scale industrial activities can have negative effects on wildlife populations. Some of these effects, however, could be reduced with effective planning prior to development. The Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in northeastern Alaska, USA, is an important maternal denning area for polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Recent legislation has opened the area for potential oil and gas development. As a result, there is interest in conducting winter seismic surveys across the area that could disturb denning female polar bears and lead to decreased cub survival. We sought to demonstrate how different seismic survey designs, with and without aerial den detection surveys, could affect the level of potential effect on denning polar bears during spring (Feb–Apr). We developed 5 hypothetical seismic survey designs for a portion of the Coastal Plain ranging from no spatial or temporal restrictions on activities to explicit consideration of when and where operations can occur. We evaluated how many dens might be disturbed by seismic surveys and the average distance activity came within simulated polar bear dens. Survey design had a large effect on the estimated number of dens that could be disturbed; the scenario with the highest spatial and temporal specificity reduced the number of dens disturbed by >90% compared to the scenario with no restrictions on when and where activity could occur. The use of an aerial den detection survey prior to seismic activity further reduced the number of dens disturbed by 68% across all scenarios. The scenario with the highest spatial and temporal specificity always had the lowest level of disturbance for all scenarios with and without the aerial survey included. Our study suggests that large reductions in the probability of disturbance can occur through careful planning on the timing and distribution of proposed activities even when surveys are planned in areas with a high density of polar bear dens. Published 2019. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. The Journal of Wildlife Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.

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confidence: 99%

Seismic Survey Design and Effects on Maternal Polar Bear Dens

Wilson

Durner

2019

J Wildl Manag

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“…Given deer are highly philopatric even in the presence of substantial development (Robinette 1966, Garrott et al 1987, Northrup et al 2016 b ), and our fidelity analysis exemplified this behavior in over 400 individuals in this study, we do not find evidence that deer are currently abandoning their winter ranges to a greater degree in the high‐development area. Sawyer et al (2006) and Sawyer et al (2019) found deer and pronghorn, respectively, to be strongly displaced at the onset of development. Thus, density differences could result from displacement of sensitive individuals before initiation of our study, or the emigration of juveniles, which we did not follow for multiple years.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Despite some behavioral responses, Beckmann et al (2016) found that pronghorn survival, mass, fecal corticosteroids, and progesterone were nearly identical between developed and undeveloped areas. However, Sawyer et al (2019), working on pronghorn over a 15-year period in an overlapping study area, documented an increase in the number of individuals abandoning their ranges, which complicates interpretation of the results of Beckmann et al (2012Beckmann et al ( , 2016. These congruent and contrasting findings across regions and species have implications for regulations aimed at reducing impacts of hydrocarbon development on wildlife.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar patterns of reduced direct interaction with development without large‐scale abandonment of ranges has been seen in previous studies of elk and mule deer in areas with active natural gas development (Webb et al 2011 a , b ). However, other studies offer contrasting findings, with pronghorn and mule deer in Wyoming displaying potential abandonment or large‐scale avoidance of developed winter range areas (Sawyer et al 2017, 2019) and sage‐grouse showing reduced lek attendance near well pads (Walker et al 2007). All of these species typically display philopatry, so these findings suggest that abandonment occurs where alternative habitats, within an animal's range, offering cover from the disturbance are not available.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Identifying these thresholds will be complicated because it is likely a function of the species, habitat, weather, climate, and timing of development. For example, Sawyer et al (2017) found larger‐scale avoidance by naïve (i.e., not previously exposed) mule deer and Sawyer et al (2019) found substantial increases in the number of naïve pronghorn completely abandoning their study areas. Although our study did not include naïve deer, comparisons to our results suggest deer can persist at higher densities in proximity to development in our study area with more vegetative and topographic cover.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Mule Deer to Energy Development on Winter Range

Northrup

Anderson

Gerber

et al. 2021

Wildlife Monographs

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Anthropogenic habitat modification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. In North America, one of the primary sources of habitat modification over the last 2 decades has been exploration for and production of oil and natural gas (hydrocarbon development), which has led to demographic and behavioral impacts to numerous wildlife species. Developing effective measures to mitigate these impacts has become a critical task for wildlife managers and conservation practitioners. However, this task has been hindered by the difficulties involved in identifying and isolating factors driving population responses. Current research on responses of wildlife to development predominantly quantifies behavior, but it is not always clear how these responses scale to demography and population dynamics. Concomitant assessments of behavior and population‐level processes are needed to gain the mechanistic understanding required to develop effective mitigation approaches. We simultaneously assessed the demographic and behavioral responses of a mule deer population to natural gas development on winter range in the Piceance Basin of Colorado, USA, from 2008 to 2015. Notably, this was the period when development declined from high levels of active drilling to only production phase activity (i.e., no drilling). We focused our data collection on 2 contiguous mule deer winter range study areas that experienced starkly different levels of hydrocarbon development within the Piceance Basin.We assessed mule deer behavioral responses to a range of development features with varying levels of associated human activity by examining habitat selection patterns of nearly 400 individual adult female mule deer. Concurrently, we assessed the demographic and physiological effects of natural gas development by comparing annual adult female and overwinter fawn (6‐month‐old animals) survival, December fawn mass, adult female late and early winter body fat, age, pregnancy rates, fetal counts, and lactation rates in December between the 2 study areas. Strong differences in habitat selection between the 2 study areas were apparent. Deer in the less‐developed study area avoided development during the day and night, and selected habitat presumed to be used for foraging. Deer in the heavily developed study area selected habitat presumed to be used for thermal and security cover to a greater degree. Deer faced with higher densities of development avoided areas with more well pads during the day and responded neutrally or selected for these areas at night. Deer in both study areas showed a strong reduction in use of areas around well pads that were being drilled, which is the phase of energy development associated with the greatest amount of human presence, vehicle traffic, noise, and artificial light. Despite divergent habitat selection patterns, we found no effects of development on individual condition or reproduction and found no differences in any of the physiological or vital rate parameters measured at the population level. However, deer density and annual increases in density were higher in the low‐development area. Thus, the recorded behavioral alterations did not appear to be associated with demographic or physiological costs measured at the individual level, possibly because populations are below winter range carrying capacity. Differences in population density between the 2 areas may be a result of a population decline prior to our study (when development was initiated) or area‐specific differences in habitat quality, juvenile dispersal, or neonatal or juvenile survival; however, we lack the required data to contrast evidence for these mechanisms.Given our results, it appears that deer can adjust to relatively high densities of well pads in the production phase (the period with markedly lower human activity on the landscape), provided there is sufficient vegetative and topographic cover afforded to them and populations are below carrying capacity. The strong reaction to wells in the drilling phase of development suggests mitigation efforts should focus on this activity and stage of development. Many of the wells in this area were directionally drilled from multiple‐well pads, leading to a reduced footprint of disturbance, but were still related to strong behavioral responses. Our results also indicate the likely value of mitigation efforts focusing on reducing human activity (i.e., vehicle traffic, light, and noise). In combination, these findings indicate that attention should be paid to the spatial configuration of the final development footprint to ensure adequate cover. In our study system, minimizing the road network through landscape‐level development planning would be valuable (i.e., exploring a maximum road density criteria). Lastly, our study highlights the importance of concomitant assessments of behavior and demography to provide a comprehensive understanding of how wildlife respond to habitat modification. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

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Habitat loss on seasonal migratory range imperils an endangered ungulate

Williams

Steenweg

Hegel

et al. 2021

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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1. Endangered species policies and their associated recovery documents and management actions do not always sufficiently address the importance of migratory behaviour and seasonal ranges for imperilled populations. 2. Using a telemetry location dataset spanning 1981-2018, we tested for changes in prevalence of migratory tactics (resident, migrant) over time, switching between tactics, shifts in seasonal space use including migration corridors, and survival consequences of migrant and resident tactics for 237 adult female endangered woodland mountain caribou in one population in western Canada. 3. Over more than three decades, the proportion of individuals displaying annual migration to the low elevation forested winter range declined from nearly 100%-38%. Correspondingly, there was a strong switch away from being migrant to being year-round residents at high elevation. 4. These behavioural changes corresponded to abandonment of low elevation winter ranges in association with increasing levels of anthropogenic land uses, including forestry and oil and gas developments. Furthermore, there were no identifiable migration corridors to target for migratory route protection. 5. These shifts translated to lower survival rates, particularly for caribou demonstrating resident tactics, consistent with recent declines of the caribou population. That migrants switched to residency in their largely undisturbed summer range, despite lower survival, indicates maladaptive habitat selection consistent with recent patterns of mountain caribou extirpations. 6. Globally, endangered species policies and their associated recovery plans and management actions often do not explicitly consider the challenge of protecting migratory species. Effective conservation of migratory species requires protecting critical This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Long‐term effects of energy development on winter distribution and residency of pronghorn in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Cited by 21 publications

References 50 publications

Seismic Survey Design and Effects on Maternal Polar Bear Dens

Seismic Survey Design and Effects on Maternal Polar Bear Dens

Behavioral and Demographic Responses of Mule Deer to Energy Development on Winter Range

Habitat loss on seasonal migratory range imperils an endangered ungulate

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