The 1100m elevational boundary was qualitatively assessed with Figure 4 suggesting the boundary captures separate migrant and resident elevational groups in the 2007-2009 study for both July and August. The boundary may separate 1986-1993 elk into two groups, with a small shoulder on the left side of both July and August indicating the 5% resident population (Phillips and Szkorupa 2011), but is unable to separate elk movements in the 2014-2018 study.
In order to explore East Kootenay elk migratory trends over the past four decades, an ANOVA was performed on mean elevations of elk for the three study periods for July (Figure 6A) and August (Figure 6B), when elk are on summer range and migratory behaviour is most variable (Figure 2). The p-values suggest that mean elevation significantly differed in July between study 1 and 2 (Table 3&4). Only a slightly significant difference between study 1 and 2 was found in July, mirroring the results Phillips and Szkorupa 2011 found with increasing elk residency from 5% to 37% between study 1 and 2. There is also a clear trend when assessing Figure 6 that more recent 2014-2018 elk have increased mean elevation from 2007-2009, suggesting that migration is increasing.
Figure 6. Boxplots of mean elevations of elk in each study July (A) and August (B).
Table 3. ANOVA table of Mean Elevation ~ Study for July location
Table 4. ANOVA table of Mean Elevation ~ Study for August locations
It is clear that although elk elevation is quite variable and may have limited power to pick-up on shifting migration patterns, it is able to capture the decline in migration previously found between study 1 and 2. The more recent shift in elk movement back to higher elevations suggest elk are migrating again. These results can be useful to wildlife managers when addressing human-elk issues, such as crop depredation, as this is likely due to individual problem elk, as opposed to a larger elk population migration decline. Next steps include understanding the causes of this migration recovery. In the same time period of shifting elk migration patterns, there has been the recovery of wolves to the landscape and a shift in land use, including increasing clear-cuts and expanding road networks and town extents. The combination of altered predation risk and different sources of anthropogenic disturbance provides an opportunity to better understand the shifts in elk migration in response to altered landscapes.