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Matthew J. Kauffman

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The Owl Creek elk herd, with 7,500–8,500 wintering elk, inhabits the northwest corner of the Wind River Reservation, traversing habitats along the Absaroka Range and the Owl Creek Mountains (fig. 36). The herd contains resident and migratory elk; migrants travel an average 10.7 mi (17.2 km) one way. Elevations range from 6,000 ft (1,829 m) at Wind River near Crowheart to 12,200 ft (3,700 m) in the Absaroka Range, and summits in the Owl Creek Mountains reach 8,000–9,800 ft (2,438–2,987 m). Habitats range from sage and desert scrub in the lowlands surrounding the Wind River Range to upland meadows, aspen groves, Pinus contorta (lodgepole pine) forests, and alpine tundra. When on the Wind River Reservation, the elk...
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The eastern slope of the Wind River Range provides habitat to approximately 4,000–5,000 migratory elk. The Wind River Elk herd winters on the Wind River Reservation managed under the sovereignty of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and the Northern Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming (fig. 37). In spring, the herd migrates up in elevation to a roadless area established by the Tribes in the late 1930s—decades before The Wilderness Act of 1964 (Public Law 88-577, 16 U.S.C. 1131-1136) —or to adjacent FS lands. Many of the migration routes are along waterways with significant cultural heritage, including petroglyphs in the Dinwoody-style and areas connected to stories of sacred figures and occurrences (Wind...
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With substantial forest habitat in the Sierra Madre, the Sierra Madre elk population is one of the most productive elk herds in the state. The herd occupies typical year-round habitat for elk in Wyoming. They winter largely in expansive sagebrush growing in the foothills and at low elevations in the valley of the Little Snake River and its various drainages. In spring, most animals migrate to higher elevation forested habitat within the Sierra Madre. Like many elk herds, their seasonal migrations tend to be diffuse without a clear delineation of narrowly defined corridors; the average migration length is approximately 25 miles. Some animals migrate farther distances, with a maximum length of 62 miles, south across...
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521 unique elk were monitored across several years with GPS collars in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to determine winter-to-winter annual dispersal distances. There were a total of 704 annual movements. The dataset spans from 2001 to 2015. Annual movements were based on a single location in January or February and another location in the subsequent winter. An individual elk was included at most three times (once for each year) in the data. All elk were female, except one of the individuals in the dataset was a male. We included his movement in the analysis for completeness, but as there was only one male we chose not to directly model any differences in movement behavior between male and female elk.
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