DNR collars fawns as part of southern Minnesota study

Researchers with the Minnesota Division of Pure Assets have completed placing GPS-tracked collars on 80 new child fawns in southern Minnesota.

The work is a part of a three-year research, and the DNR says it’s the primary research of fawns in southern Minnesota in additional than 20 years.

The collars, that are designed to interrupt away from the deer after 18 months, enable researchers to trace deer motion, habitat preferences, causes of mortality and deer dispersal charges.

“It’s necessary as a result of quite a bit has modified throughout that point, together with predator populations and land use,” mentioned Eric Michel, a farmland wildlife analysis scientist primarily based out of the DNR’s Madelia wildlife analysis station.

To collar the fawns, officers use a contracted drone pilot to seek out them and inform a group of three or 4 individuals on the bottom. That group then captures the fawn, rapidly checks its measurements and slips on the GPS collar. The DNR says the entire course of sometimes takes 4 minutes, and the division collars 80 fawns every year.

“The GPS collar can inform us extra about fawn survival charges, what the first causes of deer mortality are, and what sorts of habitats they like,” Michel mentioned. “This research has nice potential to tell wildlife managers about our wild deer populations.”

That is at present the second 12 months of the three-year research. If it goes effectively, the DNR says it could possibly be replicated in different areas of the state.