Estimating Elk Abundance in the Ruby Mountains

Human recreation and wildlife overlap is a growing concern. The amount of people who visit public land grow in numbers every year, and it is important to understand how these large visitor numbers are affecting the local ecosystem. Elk are particularly affected, since they need space to raise calves, find food, and sleep as a large herd. With the largest elk population in the United States, the state of Colorado is investigating how humans that hike and camp affect where elk spend their time and raise their calves. To this end, study sites have been set up with trail cameras to follow elk movement across the landscape and estimate their abundance. We will provide an abundance estimate for one of the few study sites outside of Colorado, the Ruby Mountains of southeastern Montana. We used trail camera photos collected from June to September of 2020 to estimate elk abundance, as well as calf monthly abundance to investigate if there was a measurable change in calf population over the course of the study period. We will accomplish this using the Space to Event (STE) model. Photos are taken every ten minutes to avoid bias from faulty motion capture photos, and the cameras were randomly placed throughout the study area as well to avoid bias stemming from placing cameras in places where elk spend a disproportionate amount of their time. Although areas that experience heavy recreational use are obvious candidates for a survey, areas whose recreation are more diffuse such as the Ruby Mountains are just as important to gain a complete understanding of the subject