Rangeland Ecology & Management

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ACTIVITY PATTERNS AND HOME-RANGE ESTIMATES FOR FERAL SWINE (SUS SCROFA) IN SUB-TROPICAL RANGELANDS
Author
East, N.F.
Boykin, Kenneth G.
Seamster, Virginia A.
Guy, Rachel K.
Goodrich, David
Milleson, Michael P.
Boughton, Elizabeth H.
Wisely, Samantha M.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2014
Body

Rangeland productivity in Florida subtropical environments is predominantly driven by monsoonal seasons with a dry winter/spring and a wet summer/fall. The “wet” runs from early July until the middle of October and during the harsher dry winter ranchers provide supplemental food to livestock. Feral swine are also attracted to the supplemental feed. To understand fine scale landscape use, daily activity patterns, and home range size of feral swine during the dry season we deployed 20 GPS fitted collars to collect location data from January 10 – May 15 2013 on 10 sows and 10 boars trapped at dispersed locations on the 10400 acre MacArthur Agro-Ecology Research Center.  On average >5000 points were recorded for the 19 collars retrieved, with 15 minute resolution during high activity periods from 1600-1000 and hourly during middle of the day from 1000-1600. We estimated home range based on the utilization distribution of 95% of kernels with a bivariate normal kernel estimator and reference bandwidth smoother. During the dry season home ranges for females were 161± 106 ha and for males 337 ± 242 ha and home range size increased with individual estimated mass.  Feral swine spent considerable time bedded down in vegetative dense dry wetlands during the inactive daytime and often returned to the same wetland over consecutive days.  The most active periods of feral swine were a few hours either side of sunset and sunrise and during active excursions we measured the time feral swine spent at supplemental food sources. Home ranges of feral swine in subtropical Florida are relatively small suggesting ample local food during the dry period, which may be inadvertently supplied by ranchers. Knowledge of home range and activity patterns is important for understanding feral swine use of rangelands and how ranching practices influence swine behavior.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Orlando, FL