Monitoring Anthropogenic Activity in the Hardangervidda Wild Reindeer Range Possible Applications of Crowdsourced Strava-Data in Remote Settings
Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics. Department of Arctic and Marine Biology. Monitoring anthropogenic activity in the Hardangervidda wild reindeer range Possible applications of crowdsourced Strava-data in remote settings Vilde Grøthe Holtmoen Master’s thesis in Biology, BIO-3950, May 2021 Preface This master thesis (60ECTS) was written as the final thesis of the study-program Masters in Biology at University of Tromsø (UiT), faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, department of Arctic and Marine Biology. My supervisors has been Audun Stien (UiT) and Vegard Gundersen (NINA, dep. Lillehammer). Maps showing habitat suitability for wild reindeer on Hardangervidda in summer used in this thesis, was created by Manuela Panzacchi and Bram Van Moorter for NINA’s project Renewable Reindeer (RenewableReindeer (nina.no)) and will be published in an upcoming report (Tema-rapport) for NINA in 2021 (Panzacchi et.al., 2021, in press). Methods, analyses and results are previously published in Panzacchi et.al., 2015a. NINA had the main idea for this thesis and has contributed with the material for my analyses such as raw data from automatic counters, Strava-data and GPS-data from GPS-collared wild reindeer. 2 Abstract Seen in light of the increasing interest of nature-based tourism and recreational outdoor activities in Norway the last decades (Reimers, Eftestøl & Colman, 2003; Haukeland, Grue & Veisten, 2010), spatiotemporal information on human activity in remote areas and knowledge about how this activity may affect wildlife and nature is a crucial part of a knowledge-based management (Gundersen et.al., 2011, p.14; Gundersen, Strand & Punsvik, 2016, p.166). Hardangervidda is the largest national park in mainland Norway and is also home to the largest population of wild mountain reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus), a specie of international responsibility in management and conservation and recently added to the Norwegian red list (Kjørstad et.al., 2017, p.26; Artsdatabanken, 2021).
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