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Note: Session titles beginning with an asterisk (*) have student presenters.
AUTHORS: Hunter P. Pruitt, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources; Mark D. McConnell, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources; Brian P. Murphy, Quality Deer Management Association
ABSTRACT: Habitat fragmentation and loss are the leading causes of decreasing global biodiversity and create barriers for conservation delivery. Engaging private landowners to achieve landscape-level conservation is widely practiced; however, established mechanisms to encourage voluntary conservation practices are lacking. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginanus) management by landowners and hunters is an increasingly popular conservation tool available to conservation planners. Annually, 12 million deer hunters own or lease approximately 356 million acres for deer hunting. However, targeting deer hunters for landscape-level conservation planning has not been explored. Deer management cooperatives (DMCs) are a novel approach by private landowners and hunters working collaboratively to improve deer herd and hunting quality. DMCs are defined as ‘a group of landowners and hunters voluntarily working together to improve the quality of wildlife (white-tailed deer), habitat, and hunting experiences on their collective acreage’. By aggregating multiple properties to cooperatively manage collective acreage, hunters and landowners may facilitate a larger, more connected land area within the landscape matrix. The potential increase in cooperative habitat management conducted within DMCs may increase conservation value within the surrounding landscape and to conservation planners. Thus, DMCs may provide a method to counter decreasing connectivity between habitat patches. We quantify the habitat configuration and conservation value of DMCs compared to the surrounding landscape using FRAGSTATS® software. We compare habitat configuration, patch size and patch connectivity between DMCs and surrounding landscapes to illustrate the utility of DMCs as a conservation-planning tool to increase functional connectivity for species other than white-tailed deer within a fragmented landscape.
Tuesday October 31, 2017 10:40am - 11:00am EDT
Carroll Ford