An agent-based model of woodland caribou habitat selection in west central Alberta: A behavioral and ecological approach

Alberta woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus) are classified as threatened in Canada, and a local population in the province’s Foothills Region, the Little Smoky herd, is at immediate risk of extirpation due, in part, to anthropogenic activities such as oil, gas, and forestry that have altered the ecosystem dynamics. The Alberta government resultantly recommends the assessment and management of cumulative effects on caribou, as well as the identification and provision of adequate habitat (amount and type), to allow for caribou persistence (ASRD 2010). While much is known about caribou ecology, the behavioural mechanisms by which resource-extraction industries contribute to caribou population decline are less clear. Traditional approaches to studying wildlife-human- environment interactions do not typically consider individual-level information, account for complexities, or integrate cross-scale and cross-discipline data and methods, resulting in a great loss in predictive or explanatory power (An et al. 2005). To address these issues, we have developed a spatially explicit, agent-based model (ABM) to simulate winter habitat selection and use of woodland caribou in the face of intense land use by resource-extraction industries in west-central Alberta.