New Elk Habitat Models:
Management Applications
and Benefits
New Landscape Approaches
with Multiple Data Sources
Presentation

Review Preliminary Results.

Describe Management Implications.

List Potential Applications and Benefits.

Identify Potential Products and Tools
(Software, User’s Guide).
Nutrition Modeling

Nutrition model – Regression predictions of
elk dietary digestible energy based on data
from grazing trials conducted with tame elk
across representative environments.
Nutrition Modeling

The lower the canopy closure, the higher the
nutritional value. On forested sites, earlyseral stands provide highest nutrition, as
produced through silviculture (clearcuts,
selection harvest, thinnings) or likely with
wildfire.
Resource Selection Modeling
Integrate nutrition model with all other
factors that affect elk use on landscapes.
 Use all available telemetry data for model
construction & validation.

Which Model Best Supports the Telemetry Data and
Validates Well? “Best Model” contained 4 covariates:
1.
Dietary Digestible Energy of Forage (Nutrition).
2.
Distance to Roads Open to Public Use (Human
Disturbance).
3.
Slope (Nutrition).
4.
Distance to Cover-Forage Edge (Nutrition,
Human Disturbance, or both).
Model Validation

Validate predictions with observed data from
other study areas.

Correlation coefficients of predicted vs. observed
use remarkably high (correlation coefficients
>0.90 for best model) for the two validation sites
tested thus far with “best model.”
Management Implications

Planning and management for elk habitat
is most effective at landscape scales and
across ownerships.

Elk habitat will benefit substantially from
active silviculture (thinnings, selection
harvest, clearcuts) to
improve nutrition,
combined with
strategic access
management.
Management Implications

Wildfires are likely to produce highly
nutritious elk forage at landscape scales
that are biologically meaningful to elk.

The degree to which elk will benefit from
wildfire-based improvements in nutrition
depends on how motorized access is
managed in these areas.
Benefits

Landscapes can be characterized as
nutritionally rich, depauperate, or sufficient.

Probability of elk use can be estimated and
mapped by nutritional condition.

Human disturbance
factors can be managed
to influence elk use in
relation to nutritional
condition.
Benefits

Landscapes can be subjected to “what if”
scenarios or formal management options to
understand potential changes in values of
individual covariates and levels of elk use.
Benefits

Modeling approach can be used as a
template for other regions of the West.
Products

Maps of elk nutrition for all lands across
western Oregon and western Washington.

Maps of elk nutrition at
any desired spatial extents
or land ownerships within
the region.

Supporting GIS files, ArcGIS
Programs, and user’s guide
to run nutrition model.
Products

Maps and summaries of predicted elk use
for westside study areas and for other
westside areas where model covariates
are estimated.

Maps and summaries of
each model covariate for
all westside study areas.

Supporting GIS files, ArcGIS
programs, and user’s guide
to run resource selection
model.
Questions?