Measuring wildlife response to seismic lines to inform land use planning decisions in northwest Canada

• Author / Creator

  Tigner, D Jesse

• Development of hydrocarbon resources across northwest Canada has spurred economic prosperity but also generated concerns over impacts to biodiversity. To balance these interests, comprehensive land use plans have been used to match targeted management strategies to ecological components deemed valuable by society such as wildlife. I used remote wildlife cameras to measure the response patterns of American marten and black bear to seismic lines, a ubiquitous linear feature in western Canada. Relative to undisturbed forest locations, marten avoid open and wide seismic lines, but not narrow and recovered lines; occupancy at the home range scale also declines with increasing seismic line density. By contrast, black bears use most types of seismic lines relative to forest locations, but habitat use at broad spatial scales is influenced by the amount of available upland forest rather than line density. This research provides information to develop policies capable of meeting intended management objectives.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Seismic line
  • Rangifer tarandus
  • Caribou
  • Disturbance footprint
  • Ursus americanus
  • Land use planning
  • Threshold
  • Martes americana
  • Black bear
  • Marten
  • Energy development

• Graduation date

  Fall 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3CP52

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.