Comparison of Cover Selection by Northern Bobwhites and Hunters in Western Oklahoma

Abstract

My objective was to better understand the selection of cover by bobwhites and bobwhite hunters. Bobwhite data were obtained from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's 10-year radio-telemetry studied conducted at Packsaddle Wildlife Management Area. Hunting party data was obtained for Garmin Foretrex 201 global positioning units carried by members of the party. I compared cover type selection by bobwhites and hunters using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Descriptive statistics of hunter velocity and length of hunt were also calculated. I found the average hunting party to move with a velocity of 0.73 m/sec (SE = 0.07) in 2004 and 0.77 m/sec (SE = 0.17) in 2005. The average length of a hunting trip was 6,290.0 m (SE = 849.4) for 2004 and 6,686.6m (SE = 744.2) for 2005. Correlation analysis revealed a weak linear relationship between bobwhite and hunter selection values (r = 0.44, P = 0.01, n = 32).