Home range sizes of red deer in contrasting landscapes and implications for management

Knowledge about deer spatial use is essential for damage mitigation and management coordination. Here we assess annual and seasonal home range sizes for red deer in Sweden, based on data from GPS-marked deer in two regions with different management systems and contrasting landscapes. We compare our findings with reviewed data on European red deer (Cervus elaphus) home range sizes in Europe. We found that female annual home ranges (95% kernels) were 2.7 times larger in a mixed agricultural-forest landscape compared to a forest-dominated landscape. Core areas (50% kernels) were approximately 1/5 of the full annual home ranges (90% kernels) regardless of region. Home range size in the forest landscape showed little inter-seasonal variation whereas in the agricultural-forest landscape, home ranges were significantly larger during calving, hunt, and winter-spring compared to summer and rut. In the forest landscape, females had home range sizes that enables single red deer management areas to...