1. capercaillie habitats
Assessing the spatio-temporal pattern of winter sports activities to minimize disturbance in
capercaillie habitats
Flyer
Logger
Fotofalle
Laptop
Festplatte und stick
Visitenkärtli
Pointer
Keywords: GPS logging, backcountry skiing, snowshoeing, Tetrao urogallus, wildlife management,
visitor management, recreation ecology, human wildlife conflict, Biosfera Val Müstair
Move workshop,
Martin Wyttenbach, master student, Zentr. Naturmanagement ZHAW

2. Disturbance of capercaillie habitats Bild tiere im winter
Info wildtiere
Capercaillies loos energy when disturbed in their winterhabitats.
-> lower reproduction rate
-> death
-Y devitalisation
Bild: Roland Graf

3. Problems
Assessing spatial disturbance effects of wintersport activities on capercaillies
Identify and quantify the capercaillie habitats affected by backcountry skiers and snowshoers
Find a measure to describe disturbance intensity
-> suggest management actions

4. GPS-Logging Skitourenrouten Val Müstair
Skitouren val müstair fokus piz daint
Start Touren 2009
Tschierv
Start Touren 2010
Piz Dora
Piz Turettas
Karte: Swisstopo 1:200`000

5. Ascent Piz Dora
Piz Dora
Karte: Swisstopo 1:200`000

6. Spatial analysis
data
GPS tracks (ski-/snowboard- and snowshoetours) and official routes were used as vector line data
All other data were converted into raster (cell size 25 m)
buffer of 100 m around GPS tracks (capercaillie flushing distance)

7. 1. Line density (simple density)
Spatial analysis
1. Line density (simple density)
Density of GPS tracks within a range of 100 m for each raster cell (km/km2).
A straight crossing through the density extent of one raster cell is 200 m (equalling a density of 0.2 km / km2).
Calculation of crossings
Total numer of crossings per raster cell (n)
n = (L1 + L2) D D
L1: 170 m
L2: 230 m
D: 200m

8. Spatial analysis 2. Counting
Translation of relative densities into absolute numbers (combination of GPS tracking and data from camera traps)
Camera traps: 69 recreationalists per week (average count)
dataset: 70 GPS tracks passing through the camera trap location
-> density from GPS track data used in the analysis represents an average number of crossings per week

9. Spatial analysis 3. Classification
1) not affected = no crossings at all;
2) low = 1 to 3 (includes single trips with roaming patterns);
3) medium = 4 to 24
(4) intense = 25 and more.

10. Overall densities
Karte: Swisstopo 1:200`000

11. Capercaillie core habitat
Wildhüter wilma (datenquelle Auerhuhngebiet)

12. Improvements
Trips as vector point data (points per area as a measure for disturbance)
Seperate class for brakes -> method to define brakes
Differenciate ascent and descent
Further methods to assess spatio-temporal use by recreationalists?
Analysis of behavior refering to official routes and activitys?

13. Thank you for your attention!

14. Questions
Further methods to assess spatio-temporal use by recreationalists?
Precision of classification; expl: low 1 – 3 crossings including roaming patterns -> identification and classification of roaming patterns
Analysis of behavior refering to official routes and activitys?