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Habitat selection of semi-free ranging European bison: Do bison preferred natural open habitats? Cover

Habitat selection of semi-free ranging European bison: Do bison preferred natural open habitats?

Open Access
|Mar 2021

Abstract

European bison (Bison bonasus) were successfully reintroduced in many free or semi-free areas across Europe during the last decades. Due to the increased numbers, the conflicts between human activities and bison are more frequent. Therefore the knowledge about spatial activity and habitat preference in new regions is the need for management decision making. We studied daily and seasonal habitat use of the semi-free European bison herd in the Czech Republic from 2014 to 2019. The lead cows of the herd were collared with the GPS devices with a 30-minutes GPS fixes interval. The bison herd strongly preferred the managed open areas and supplementary feeding stations during the seasons (Jacob´s index from 0.49 to 0.99). On the contrary, they avoided the forest type and unmanaged open habitats (Jacob´s index from −0.23 to −0.69). The managed meadows and feeding places they used almost exclusively during the night while the forest during the day-light.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/forj-2021-0002 | Journal eISSN: 2454-0358 | Journal ISSN: 2454-034X
Language: English
Page range: 30 - 34
Published on: Mar 26, 2021
Published by: National Forest Centre and Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2021 Miloslav Zikmund, Miloš Ježek, Václav Silovský, Jaroslav Červený, published by National Forest Centre and Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.