Mount Rainier National Park and Olympic National Park elk monitoring program annual report 2012
Happe PJ, Reid M, Vales DJ, Moeller BJ, Tirhi M, McCorquodale S. 2013. Mount Rainier National Park and Olympic National Park elk monitoring program annual report 2012. Natural Resource Data Series. NPS/NCCN/NRDS—2013/456. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
Fiscal year 2012 was the second year of implementing an approved elk monitoring protocol (Griffin et al. 2012) in Mount Rainier (MORA) and Olympic (OLYM) National Parks in the North Coast and Cascades Network (NCCN). However, it was the fifth and third year of gathering data according to protocol in MORA and OLYM respectively; data gathered during the protocol development phase followed procedures described in the protocol. Elk monitoring in these large wilderness parks relies on aerial surveys from a helicopter. Summer surveys are intended to provide quantitative estimates of abundance, sex and age composition, and distribution of migratory elk in high elevation trend count areas. An unknown number of elk is not detected during aerial surveys; however the number of missed elk may be estimated by applying site-specific models that account for detection bias (Griffin et al. 2012). Detection bias for elk surveys in MORA was estimated using a model developed from survey data collected from 2008-2010, making use of elk that were previously equipped with radio collars by cooperating tribes. At the onset of protocol development in OLYM there were no existing radio-collars on elk. Consequently the majority of the effort in the OLYM in the past 5 years has been focused on capturing and radio-collaring elk and conducting sightability trials needed to develop a detection bias model for OLYM. In this annual report we provide estimates of abundance and composition of elk observed in MORA, present raw counts of elk observed in OLYM, and describe sightability trials conducted in OLYM. At MORA the North trend count unit was surveyed once and the South unit was surveyed twice. We counted 706 and 500 elk during the replicate surveys of the South Rainier trend count area, and 236 elk in the North Rainier trend count area. Using the model to correct for detection bias, we estimated that 810 and 622 elk were in the South area, and 290 elk were in the North trend count area at the time of the respective surveys. At OLYM, the Core and Elwha trend count areas were completely surveyed, as were portions of the Northwest; we counted 371 elk in the Core and 76 in the Elwha. In addition, we surveyed 16 survey units specifically to get detection bias data. We conducted double-observer sightability trials with 23 collared elk groups for use in developing a detection bias model for OLYM.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Happe, Patricia; Reid, Mason; Vales, David; Moeller, Barbara; Tirhi, Michelle; McCorquodale, Scott
- Date of Issue
- 2013-03
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- MORA , NRSS , OLYM
- Keywords
- Abundance, Aerial Survey, annual report, Cervus elaphus nelsoni, Cervus elaphus roosevelti, Composition, Distribution, Elk, Elk Monitoring, Elwha, Helicopter, High Elevation, Hoh, migratory, Monitoring, Mount Rainier National Park, North Rainier, North Rainier herd, Olympic National Park, Queets, Quinault, Radio Collar, resident, Rocky Mountain Elk, Roosevelt Elk, sightability model, South Rainier, South Rainier herd, summer range, trend count, Winter Range
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Mammals