Life Sciences Commons^™

Disease And Predation: Sorting Out Causes Of A Bighorn Sheep (Ovis Canadensis) Decline, Joshua B. Smith, Jonathan A. Jenks, Troy Grovenburg, Robert W. Klaver

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Estimating survival and documenting causes and timing of mortality events in neonate bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) improves understanding of population ecology and factors influencing recruitment. During 2010–2012, we captured and radiocollared 74 neonates in the Black Hills, South Dakota, of which 95% (70) died before 52 weeks of age. Pneumonia (36%) was the leading cause of mortality followed by predation (30%). We used known fate analysis in Program MARK to estimate weekly survival rates and investigate the influence of intrinsic variables on 52-week survival. Model {S1 wk, 2–8 wks, .8 wks} had the lowest AICc (Akaike’s Information Criterion corrected for …