Analysis of Land Disturbance and Pygmy Rabbit Occupancy Values Associated With Oil and Gas Extraction in Southwestern Wyoming, 2012

Pygmy rabbits (Brachylagus idahoensis) are a Species of Greatest Conservation Need in Wyoming. They are designated as such because they are sagebrush obligates and entrained in the health and intactness of sagebrush steppe landscapes. Southwest Wyoming, where pygmy rabbits occur, has become an epicenter of domestic oil and gas exploration and this activity contributes to loss and fragmentation of sagebrush habitats. This tabular file that was used for analysis contains the following data/information: survey site, plot, and gas field; pygmy rabbit occupancy status; UTM coordinates associated with occupancy (dithered to protect pygmy rabbits from further disturbance); an index value indicating amount of fresh pygmy rabbit sign present on each survey plot; UTM coordinates (dithered) associated with the single greatest concentration of fresh pygmy rabbit sign on each plot; shrub and sagebrush cover values on each plot, extracted from Wyoming Sagebrush Map data (Homer, C. G., C. L. Aldridge, D. K. Meyer, and S. J. Schell. 2012. Multi-scale remote sensing sagebrush characterization with regression trees over Wyoming, USA: Laying a foundation for monitoring. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 14:233–244); area covered by each of 10 gas field infrastructure elements; vegetative cover and infrastructure all were mapped within 0.5 km and 1 km radius of each plot focal point (i.e., UTM coordinates associated with occupancy). Full description of each variable in this data set are provided in Germaine, et al. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1817).