Nonrandom distribution of antlers cast by Peary caribou bulls, Melville Island, Northwest Territories

Abstract

Rangifer tarandus pearyi antlers were clumped in distribution and their numbers declined significantly with distance from the seacoast (p <0.05). Use of such coastal rutting areas by low-density populations of Peary caribou would confer, without any precognition or anticipation on the part of the animals, maximal timely contact between rutting bulls and cows in heat during the short temporal peak of the autumn rut by reducing a two-dimensional search problem to an essentially linear one. -from Authors