Movement patterns of rural and suburban white-tailed deer in Massachusetts

Abstract. We used satellite land cover data and the program FRACiSTATS to quantify land cover types and calculate the amount o f forest edge available in suburban ant1 rural regions o f northeastern and northwestern Mas-sachusetts. Cover categories included forest cover, open canopy vegetation. and non-deer habitat. We calculated all edge segments where forest cover abutted open canopy cover. Our open canopy vegetation category was calcu-lated both with ant1 without low intensity suburban tlevelopment. We then compared these findings to movement data from 53 (1 3 males. 40 females) adult ratlio-marked white-tailed deer (0rlrtc~itilecr.t vir~irticrrrlr.t) monitored biweekly and diurnally from January 2001 to January 2003. The range o f movements o f suburban (leer in eastcrn Massachusetts showed no difference to that o f suburban deer in western Massachusetts ( P = 0.7). However. the ranges for suburban deer in both eastern and western Massachusetts were I 0 times less than those o f deer in rural western Massachusetts ( P = 0.001). Our lindings suggest that landscape conliguration. as described by the amount and distribution o f edge clue to suburban development. which is related to the amount and distribution o f resources such as food and cover, affects migratory behavior o f white-tailed deer, allows deer to have smaller ranges. and contributes to high deer densities. Inclusion o f suburban edge in habitat models wil l increase our understanding o f deer-habitat relationships for management o f deer i n urbanizing environments