Abstract

Over the past 40 years, northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) populations have experienced range-wide declines. Population parameters have been gathered throughout most of the range but Mid-Atlantic populations have been largely ignored. In my study, I sought not only to gather data on winter habitat, movement, and selection, but also examine the relationship between these metrics and survival. I captured and radiotracked bobwhites between October and April, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 non-breeding seasons on a 125km2 area of Cumberland County, New Jersey, USA. Chi-square analysis with Bonferroni confidence intervals revealed third order selection of Grassland and Scrub-Shrub habitat classes more often than expected while Agriculture and Other habitat classes were used less than in proportion to their availability. The relationship between coveys and Forest habitat appears to be more complex. Cox proportional hazard analysis revealed that risk of mortality was increased by use of Grassland habitat, low movement rates, and increased proximity to occupied buildings and barns. These results indicate that bobwhite coveys may be isolated in small fragments of usable habitat without sufficient travel corridors to maintain large enough winter home ranges to meet their biological needs. Additionally, my data suggests that predators may be forming a preferred search image on these fragmented habitats, thereby increasing mortality. It is possible bobwhite suffer from both low quantity and quality of habitat on the landscape. Increased interspersion of Woody cover on Grasslands as well as land management that increases Grassland and Scrub-Shrub habitat on the landscape level could increase bobwhite winter survival and ultimately aid in stabilizing the population in southern New Jersey. House cat predation and window collisions are possible causative factors for the correlation between mortality risk and distance to occupied buildings and barns and their potential impacts on bobwhite populations should be investigated in future studies.