February

Spotted Owl Suitable Habitat Modelling for Southwest British Columbia

Organization
BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management

Author
Christopher Ens

ESRI Software
ArcInfo 8.3, GRID

Data Sources
BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource's TRIM DEM; BC Ministry of Forests's Forest Cover; NTS water; GDBC Hillshade

Description
The Spotted Owl Habitat Modelling map describes the five main steps for modelling Northern Spotted Owl habitat in Southwest British Columbia. The model performs a GRID analysis on an Owl suitability dataset, derived from forest cover and elevation datasets, to come up with values of what percent of the surrounding 3200 hectares of capable habitat are suitable for Spotted Owl. The resultant maps and analyses were used by the Spotted Owl Recovery Team in an effort to prevent a further decline in the numbers of the species.

Acknowledgements
Ian Blackburn, Wildlife Biologist, BC Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection; BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management