This project was a collaborative effort with Wesley A. Brashear and Robert C. Dowler of Angelo State University on a privately owned ranch in Tom Green County, Texas. In the first application of radio-telemetry to study the ecology of the American hog-nosed skunk (Conepatus leuconotus), we found significant overlap between both male and female home ranges, and in line with solitary, polygynous carnivores, males maintained larger home ranges that also overlapped those of multiple females. Check out the paper below on the spatial ecology we published together with Nicholas Negovetich of ASU in the American Midland Naturalist.
We also used telemetry to track these animals to their diurnal den sites, characterizing the macro and micro habitat characteristics to identify habitat features skunks may select for when it comes to den selection. These data are currently being refocused into a paper for submission to the Journal of Mammalogy.
