Polish research on elk migration

26.03.2020

Common opinion is that all moose migrate. The latest research shows that this is not the rule at all. “It turned out that in the Biebrza valley, two-thirds of elks were undertaking seasonal migrations, while only 4% of the population in Polesie migrated,” – says Dr Tomasz Borowik, author of analyzes from the Mammal Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN).

Experts from the Mammal Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Białowieża, the University of Bialystok and the University of Life Sciences in Lublin conducted research from 2012 to 2016. They described the results of their research in the scientific journal Plos One.

The researchers observed 47 individuals having special collars with GPS transmitter. The devices tracked animals and transmitted data every hour. In total, over 660 thousand locations were collected, which allowed detailed tracking of migrations.

This is the first elk survey of this type in central Europe. They have proven that these big herbivores are individualists, and their migration strategies depend mainly on the structure of the environment and their established, inherited or learned behaviors.
More:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0230521


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