Wildlife management practice questions for Ontario

Wildlife management questions

1. 1A woodlot owner closes his property to all hunting and expects the deer herd there to keep growing year after year. What actually sets the ceiling on that herd?

   1. AThe number of fawns born each spring
   2. BThe food, water, cover, and space the land can supply through the hardest part of the year
   3. CThe acreage of the property
   4. DThe mildness of the previous summer
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   BThe food, water, cover, and space the land can supply through the hardest part of the year

   Habitat decides how many animals a piece of land can carry, not how many young are born. Once a herd climbs past what the land supplies, starvation, disease, and poor fawn survival push it back down.

2. 2Seasons and limits in Ontario are set so that harvest draws on the portion of a population the habitat was never going to carry through to spring. What is that portion called?

   1. AThe annual surplus
   2. BCarrying capacity
   3. CBiotic potential
   4. DThe core breeding stock
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   AThe annual surplus

   Most wildlife populations produce more young each year than their habitat can support through winter. Regulated hunting aims at that surplus, which is how a harvest can happen without cutting into the breeding population.

3. 3A township block of uniform mature forest is logged into a patchwork of young growth, small openings, and standing timber. Deer numbers climb. What explains the change?

   1. AShade was reduced across the whole block
   2. BPredators avoid cut areas
   3. CFood, cover, and water now sit close enough together for animals to use them daily
   4. DLogging roads gave deer easier travel
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   CFood, cover, and water now sit close enough together for animals to use them daily

   Wildlife needs food, water, cover, and space arranged within reach of one another, not just present somewhere on the landscape. A mixed patchwork supports more animals than an unbroken block of any single habitat type.

4. 4Why do wildlife agencies want season reports from licence holders who never fired a shot, not only from successful hunters?

   1. ATo calculate licence refunds
   2. BBecause effort data from unsuccessful hunters is what gives the harvest totals meaning
   3. CTo rank hunters against each other
   4. DTo decide who gets a licence the following year
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   BBecause effort data from unsuccessful hunters is what gives the harvest totals meaning

   A rise in harvest can mean more animals or simply more people hunting longer. Knowing how many days went into the season, including days that produced nothing, lets managers read the harvest as a population trend.

5. 5Fire runs through an old, closed-canopy stand, and within a few years the moose using that area increase. What is behind it?

   1. ABurned ground holds heat that moose seek out
   2. BFire drives away competing species permanently
   3. CThe regrowth that follows a disturbance produces the shrubs and shoots moose browse on
   4. DAsh improves the water supply
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   CThe regrowth that follows a disturbance produces the shrubs and shoots moose browse on

   Moose feed on young woody growth, which comes in thickly once fire or logging opens a canopy. This is why habitat work sits alongside seasons and limits in a manager's toolkit.