Open Collections

Description

Rangelands provide essential forage for livestock globally. In British Columbia, cattle graze throughout a variety of ecosystems, including forested and timber managed areas. Across different range tenures, environmental factors influence the suitability for grazing and selection of the land by livestock; understanding this selection is essential for sustainable management decisions. While knowledge regarding cattle selection is largely held by ranchers and rangeland managers in qualitative form, increasingly accessible GPS tracking technology enables the quantitative assessment of cattle selection in these tenures. Habitat selection across a range tenure in south central British Columbia was evaluated using proportionate chi squared testing and resource selection functions, driven by attributes of terrain, range ecotype, water access, and disturbance. Study periods were defined by seasonal and geographic boundaries to assess selection over two years of GPS tracking data. Models including all explanatory variables were the best-supported across all study periods, indicating a multifaceted relationship between environmental attributes and cattle selection. Selection of range ecotype varied across models, but cattle dominantly selected for deciduous, recently logged, grassland and wet environment range ecotypes. Cattle avoided steep slopes and areas far from water. Relationships with aspect were varied, and postulated to be explained by the orientation of slopes in close proximity to water sources. In the summer grazing pasture, cattle showed significant selection for all levels of burn severity in the first year of the study, and only low severity burn in the second year. Continued assessment of burn severity selection may yield valuable information for management of grazing in post-fire ecosystems. These results quantitatively advance the understanding of cattle resource use in the studied range tenure, and will serve evidence-based rangeland management.