2007 Summaries of Wildlife Research Findings - Minnesota State ...

Table 1. Mean (+ SE) location-sampling success and indicators of performance for global positioning system (GPS) collars fitted
to free-ranging female white-tailed deer and during controlled trials in the same habitat as the collared deer, near Grand Rapids,
MN, winters 2000-2001 to 2006-2007. a
% success % success Overall % % 3-D % PDOP values d
Deer/Trial n b 1 location/hr 1 location/4 hr success locations c 0-5 6-10 >10
Deer 32 72.0 70.7 71.0 64.4 78.6 14.8 7.0
(4.0) (4.2) (3.9) (1.8) (1.2) (0.6) (0.7)
396
Trials 34 95.6 94.5 95.6 89.0 86.1 11.3 2.6
(1.6) (2.5) (1.6) (2.2) (1.1) (0.8) (0.4)
a Trials involved setting GPS collars upright or on their side in various winter habitat types for several days, programmed to
sample a location at 1 location per hour or 1 location per 4 hours.
b Sample size varied from 25 to 32 and 31 to 34 for the above performance indicators of collars fitted on deer or used in trials,
respectively, depending on whether the sampling schedule included 1 location per hour or per 4 hours, or both. Additionally, on
rare occasion, collar malfunction did not allow recording of data for an indicator.
c Three-D locations are 3-dimensional, which requires 4 satellites to simultaneously fix the location.
d PDOP is the position dilution of precision; lower values have been associated with more accurate location determination.