Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Alberta are classified as endangered and apparently have declined. Disturbance from petroleum exploration has been implicated as a possible cause, so we constructed a simple model to estimate the energy costs of multiple encounters with disturbance (i.e., loud noise). Our objective was to estimate if woodland caribou in northeastern Alberta have been exposed to enough disturbance from 1988 to 1993 to cause winter mass loss to exceed either (i) 15% autumn mass or (ii) 20% autumn mass. A single disturbance event costs caribou 3.46-5.81 MJ. Caribou would have to encounter (i) 20-34 (mean = 27) disturbance events to lose >15% mass over winter and (ii) 41-137 (mean = 89) events to lose > 20% [...]
