Dall's Sheep Monitoring in the Arctic Network National Parks

Delisle Z. Dall's Sheep Monitoring in the Arctic Network National Parks. 1974. National Park Service

The primary goal of the Arctic Network Dall’s sheep monitoring program is to determine trends in the abundance and distribution of sheep in the parks and preserves which span the central and western Brooks Range, while being statistically robust enough to deal with the difficulties of surveying in this remote area. Over 41,000 km2 of potential Dall’s sheep habitat have been delineated for this region, most of it within Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (GAAR), Noatak National Preserve (NOAT), northern Kobuk Valley National Park (KOVA) and a small portion of Cape Krusenstern National Monument (CAKR). The region likely harbored 13-15% of the world’s Dall’s sheep population in the 1980s (Valdez and Krausman 1999), followed by a precipitous decline in the early 1990s attributed to severe winter weather that likely reduced access to forage and increased vulnerability to predation (Whitten 1997, Shults 2004). Localized surveys in small portions of the region have shown some recovery in numbers since then (e.g., Shults 2004), but little is known about park-wide and regional population trends.

Type
Project
Authors
Delisle, Zackary
Publisher
National Park Service
Units
ARCN , CAKR , GAAR , KOVA , NOAT
Keywords
Abundance, Alaska, dall, dall's, Denali, game, Gates of the Arctic, Kobuk, Monitoring, National Park, Noatak, Ovis dalli, Population, Sheep, Wildlife, wrangell st. elias
Subjects
Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Mammals

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