Lewis and Clark National Historical Park elk monitoring program annual report 2010
Cole C, Griffin PC, Jenkins KJ. 2012. Lewis and Clark National Historical Park elk monitoring program annual report 2010. Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/NCCN/NRTR—2012/531. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
Fiscal year 2010 was the second full year of elk monitoring protocol implementation at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park (LEWI), part of the North Coast and Cascades Network (NCCN) Inventory and Monitoring program. Elk monitoring at Lewis and Clark NHP includes two components. Fecal pellet surveys at a systematic sample of points in the Fort Clatsop unit are intended to give quantitative estimates of relative use by elk in that unit. Driving surveys on specified routes in and near the Fort Clatsop unit are intended to provide an index of elk viewing opportunities on those roads. Fecal pellet surveys include a fall clearing session and a late winter sampling session. Fall clearing from November 9 to November 17, 2009 included visits to 67 survey points. Late winter sampling from March 1 to March 8 2010 included repeat visits to 65 of those same points, but not to two others that had hazardous access or were under water. We detected elk fecal pellets in 30 points in the fall and at 30 points in the late winter. Three to four road surveys per month were conducted in each of the 12 months of fiscal year 2010 (i.e., October-December 2009 and January-September 2010). Data from those surveys will be entered, validated, certified, and analyzed following the acceptance of the peer-reviewed protocol and associated database. Data from FY09, FY10, and FY11 will be useful in the formal analyses of trend. Those three years of data will contribute to the preparation of a four-year analysis and report after only one more year. Quantitative estimates of relative use by elk throughout the Fort Clatsop unit will be provided in the four-year report in 2012. Those estimates will account for detection bias, which comes from an incomplete count of elk pellets that were present in the subplots at the time of survey.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Cole, Carla; Griffin, Pual; Jenkins, Kurt
- Date of Issue
- 2012-01-26
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- LEWI , NRSS
- Keywords
- annual report, Cervus elaphus roosevelti, detection bias, Elk, elk habitat use, Elk Monitoring, Fort Clatsop, Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, Monitoring, Oregon, pellet survey, road survey, Roosevelt Elk, spatial pattern, Washington, Winter
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Mammals