Home Range: A Weighted Normal Estimate and Tests of Underlying Assumptions

Abstract
A robust estimation procedure is proposed to identify and reduce the influence of extreme locations for the bivariate normal home-range method. Tests are proposed for validating the underlying probability distribution from observed animal locations. Location data from a black bear (Ursus americanus) are used to demonstrate the effect of outliers on size and orientation of home-range estimates and to illustrate the goodness-of-fit tests.