New Mexico Elk Jemez Migration Corridors

The Jemez elk herd resides in the Jemez Mountains within the Valles Caldera National Preserve. This herd was originally included in Ungulate Migrations of the Western United States, Volume 2 (Kauffman and others, 2022), but has been updated for this volume owing to the acquisition of new data from 40 additional adult females. The Jemez elk are only partially migratory, with some residents remaining within the Valles Caldera year-round, while others exhibit two distinct seasonal movement patterns. The first movement pattern occurs during midwinter (January–February; arrows labeled 1) when numerous individuals move to the lower elevation slopes of the Valles Caldera, primarily southeast towards Bandelier National Monument. The second movement is more typical of a spring and fall migratory movement (arrows labeled 2), with individuals traveling north to La Grulla Plateau for the summer and returning to the Valles Caldera for winter. The primary challenge for migrating individuals is crossing State Route 4 when traveling to Bandelier National Monument. These mapping layers show the location of the migration corridors for elk (<i>Cervus canadensis</i>) in the Jemez population in New Mexico. They were developed from 179 migration sequences collected from a sample size of 122 animals comprising GPS locations collected every 3 to 6 hours.

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  "geospatial"
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