Foraging Ecology of Mountain Sheep: Implications for Habitat Management

Mountain Sheep Habitat Characteristics in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness, Arizona

“…Purdy (1981) Studies of vegetational response to fire in desert ecosystems have documented patterns between burned and control plots similar to ray results (Humphrey 1949, White 1969, Bock and Bock 1978. Fire suppression reduces the high-visibility habitat needed by mountain sheep (Risenhoover 1981, Wakelyn 1987. Risenhoover and Bailey (1985) …”

Habitat selection and behavioural strategies of Stone's sheep in northern British Columbia.

“…It has limited graminoid understory with extremely poor visibility, both of which likely contribute to the strong avoidance. Decreased habitat visibility has been well documented to negatively affect selection (Shannon et al 1975;Tilton and Willard 1982;Risenhoover and Bailey 1985;Bentz and Woodward 1988;Smith et al 1999) and foraging efficiency of bighorn sheep (Risenhoover and Bailey 1985).…”

“…The slope component of topography, particularly its role in defining escape terrain, has been well recognized as an integral component in the ecology of mountain sheep (Geist 1971;Risenhoover and Bailey 1985;Berger 1991;Bleich et al 1997;Rachlow and Bowyer 1998;Bleich 1999 The influence of predation risk on habitat use and sexual segregation of sheep is well documented (Geist 1971;Festa-Bianchet 1988;Berger 1991;Bleich et al 1997;Bleich 1999;Corti and Shackleton;. Predation, particularly by wolves, is reported to be the leading cause of mortality of Stone's sheep in northern British Columbia (Bergerud andElliot 1998, Luckhurst 1973).…”

Books and Literature

“…Groups provide more eyes and ears, and enable members to spend more time feeding and less time surveying for predators. Studies of this phenomenon have found that increases in group size of six or more bighorn sheep confer an advantage in the proportion of time allocated to feeding (Berger 1978, Risenhoover andBailey 1985). The selfish herd concept of Hamilton (1971) suggests that greater group sizes may confer further behavioral comfort.…”