Winter habitat use by red and roe deer in pine-dominated forest

Seasonal habitat selection of the red deer (Cervus elaphus alxaicus) in the Helan Mountains, China

“…Habitat selection by deer is determined by the presence of both food and hiding cover (BORKOWSKI & UKALSKA 2008). The role of hiding cover in habitat use may be especially important in winter, when cervids reduce their food intake and survive, to a large extent, using their fat reserves (PUTMAN 1988).…”

“…However, historically, the main predators of C. e. alxaicus, the snow leopard, Uncia uncia (Schreber,1775); the gray wolf, Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758; and lynx, Lynx lynx (Linnaeus, 1758), became extinct during the 1980s in the Helan mountain region (WANG & SCHALLER 1996). Numerous studies have demonstrated that deer behavior and habitat use are mostly influenced by humans (BORKOWSKI & UKALSKA 2008), including hunting, other human activities (LICOPPE 2006), travel routes JIANG et al (2007) reported that C. e. xanthopygus in northeastern China showed some behavioral plasticity in response to human influences, and the effect of habitat loss or fragmentation caused by human activities are expected to be great (JAEGER et al 2005). However, in the Helan Mountain region, we found that the deer neither preferred nor avoided human disturbance (p > 0.05) (Appendix 1), and they profited from the programs of ForestGrass Conservation Project and Shelterbelt Forestry Project and Returning Husbandry to Forestry (Grass) launched in 1996 (ZHAO et al 2000(ZHAO et al 2004, respectively.…”

The effect of natural and human-induced habitat conditions on number of roe deer: case study of Vojvodina, Serbia

“…Reimoser and Zandl 1993;Partl 2001 and2002;Bokalo 2001;Borkowski and Ukalska 2008;Reimosera et al 2009). Vojvodina is one of the European regions with poorest forest areas (only 5.5% of the territory is covered by forest) ( Figure 5).…”

“…Many researchers have examined these factors and their impact on the number of game (e.g. Stedman et al 2004;Blumstein et al 2005;Borkowski and Ukalska 2008;Jayakody et al 2008;Stankowich 2008;Torres et al 2011). …”

“…The aim of this paper is to determine the factors with the most considerable impact on the number of roe deer in the investigated area. Although this species' habitat is widely influenced by a range of biogeographical factors operating at different scales (Torres et al 2011), recent researches have determined that available food (Virgós and Telléria 1998) and land cover (Mysterud and Østbye 1999;Borkowski 2004;Borkowski and Ukalska 2008;Melis et al 2009) are two essential factors. These factors play a critical part in shaping this species' habitat selection, which in turn affects the number of roe deer.…”