Home-Range Size of Wood Bison: Effects of Age, Sex, and Forage Availability

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Abstract
Between 1986 and 1991, we monitored the movements of >60 radiocollared wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) in the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary, Northwest Territories, Canada, and adjacent areas. Based on minimum-convex polygons, animals of different sex and age classes had different sizes of home ranges. Median size of home ranges for young-of-the-year (712.2 km2), immature males (706.0 km2), and adult females (1,240.5 km2), inhabiting areas providing significantly less available forage, were similar, and significantly larger than the median size of home ranges of two classes of mature adult males (younger, 434.5 km, and older, 170.1 km2) and adult females inhabiting areas providing significantly more available forage (397.8 km2). This observation was consistent with the predictions of the food-exploitation hypothesis. Significant differences in size of home range between adult females inhabiting areas with greater forage availability, young-mature and old-mature adult males, and peripheral adult males (1,062.5 km2) were consistent with the predictions of the social-system hypothesis. Food and social class are important factors in determining size of home range of wood bison.

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