Response of great horned owls to experimental ‘hot spots’ of snowshoe hare density
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Published source details
Rohner C. & Krebs C.J. (1998) Response of great horned owls to experimental ‘hot spots’ of snowshoe hare density. The Auk, 115, 694-705.
Published source details Rohner C. & Krebs C.J. (1998) Response of great horned owls to experimental ‘hot spots’ of snowshoe hare density. The Auk, 115, 694-705.
Actions
This study is summarised as evidence for the following.
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Provide supplementary food through the establishment of food populations Action Link |
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Provide supplementary food through the establishment of food populations
A replicated, controlled study from 1989-1992 in 3 experimental blocks and 5 control blocks (all 1 km2) within a forest region in the Yukon, Canada (Rohner & Krebs 1998), found that artificially increasing the density of prey did not alter the territorial or social structure of great horned owls Bubo virginianus. Experimental owls on food-enriched territories did not show a difference in home-range size and patchiness of spatial use compared with control owls. However, the distances of owl locations to treatment blocks were significantly closer to experimental centre-points than expected by chance (on average, 0.6 km closer). At a larger scale, no owls vacated their territories to use experimental plots and no owls switched to a nomadic strategy. The authors speculate that territorial behaviour prevents large aggregations of predators at an intermediate spatial scale. Experimental blocks were provided with commercial rabbit chow added weekly all year; snowshoe hare Lepus americanus densities were 2.8-10.3 times higher than in control blocks.
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