IDENTIFYING RESTING LOCATIONS OF SMALL, ELUSIVE, FOREST-DWELLING CARNIVORES USING GPS CLUSTERS

Katie M Moriarty; USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station; ktmoriarty22@gmail.com; Caylen Cummins, Bruce Hollen

Conservation of wildlife populations is aided when managers can identify and retain features correlated with individual fitness. Fishers (Pekania pennanti) are forest-dependent carnivores that select habitat at multiple scales, including rest and den structures (4th order selection). We collected location data intermittently at 15-minute intervals on nine adult fishers in the Oregon Cascades from 2015-2017. We used algorithms to identify periods with minimal movement and activity. From these clusters, we created an area that we presumed encompassed the resting structure ("rest zone"). We tested our assumption with very high frequency (VHF) telemetry and by randomly selecting rest zones and deploying remote cameras. Of the areas with both VHF and global positioning system (GPS) telemetry, 42% of rest zones had a VHF identified resting structure. We photographed fishers at 92% of the monitored rest zones. We identified 566 rest zones, 63 +/- 24 (mean +/- standard deviation) per individual and 22.3 +/- 6.9 per individual per month. Reuse estimates were >46%, contrasting with reported estimates on five occasions within a month, and 10% were used by >1 GPS collared fisher. Average nearest neighbor rest zones distances were 378 meters (maximum = 2.8 kilometers). Our novel application using fine-scale GPS data provided a complementary method to quantify the habits and habitat of an elusive forest carnivore.

Ecology and Conservation of Mammals II