Translocation is considered a primary tool to reestablish or bolster waning populations of many wildlife species, and is often accompanied by habitat alterations in an effort to improve and expand suitable habitats. We used GPS locations collected from 38 bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) translocated to the Seminoe Mountains, Wyoming, in 2009 and 2010, as well as from 24 bighorns captured in our study area in 2011 to investigate provisional impacts of prescribed and wildfire-mediated habitat alterations that impacted ~24% of the study area in 2011 and 2012. We conducted analyses that quantified home range distributional changes, resource selection, and survival of bighorn sheep from 2009 to 2013. Bighorns expanded home ranges and increased proportional use of fire-treated areas; however, regression model coefficients indicated no overall selection for fire-treated areas. Bighorn survival decreased by over 30% after fires in 2012 that were accompanied by severe drought conditions, suggesting prescribed fires conducted under favorable conditions (2011) induced potentially positive bighorn responses including high survival and increased use of treated areas, whereas fires that occurred during drought conditions that were generally more severe and widespread (2012) coincided with increased bighorn mortality rates in spring 2013. Furthermore, bighorn mortality associated with poor body condition had higher home range overlap with burned areas (t7 = -2.44, P = 0.045). Our study suggests that large-scale fires coupled with unfavorable weather conditions rendered bighorns unable to access adequate forage to meet nutritional requirements because they were unwilling to forego site fidelity. Because impacts of fires on bighorn populations are highly dependent on ensuing vegetative recovery, consideration should be given to the timing, extent, and spatial coverage of prescribed fires. Therefore, we recommend conducting prescribed fires before bighorn reintroductions, or conducting prescribed fires on a relatively small scale and on a rotational basis to avoid impeding foraging options.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.