{"id":285562,"date":"2018-07-26T14:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T21:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=285562"},"modified":"2019-09-17T17:00:24","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T00:00:24","slug":"propose-wildlife-corridors-for-key-species","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/natural-resources\/propose-wildlife-corridors-for-key-species","title":{"rendered":"Propose Wildlife Corridors for Key Species"},"author":7601,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[22941,22771],"tags":[192722,43821,100192,39421,192732],"industry":[],"product":[36561],"class_list":["post-285562","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mapping","category-natural-resources","tag-bobcat","tag-conservation","tag-learn-by-doing","tag-spatial-analyst","tag-wildlife-corridors","product-arcgis-pro"],"acf":{"short_description":"Optimize wildlife conservation by identifying ideal habitats and connecting them with a least-cost path.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Step 1: Create a wildlife conservation plan<\/h1>\n

As the director of Natural Resources for Vermont, you need to conserve the wildlife populations in your state that are being threatened by habitat fragmentation. Human encroachment is breaking up the contiguous forest into smaller isolated patches. To slow the rate of fragmentation, you need to prioritize which lands to protect and design a way to connect them.<\/p>\n

Connecting isolated patches of habitat is important because it helps maintain biodiversity. When individuals from spatially discrete subpopulations interact, they form a metapopulation. This encourages genetic diversity and allows the species to recolonize a patch if the local population disappears.<\/p>\n

You cannot individually consider each wildlife species, so you\u2019ll design the conservation plan around an umbrella species. An umbrella species is one that is generally high on the food chain and that requires large areas of intact habitat. By focusing conservation efforts on an umbrella species, other species that live in similar habitats will also be protected. For this area of northern Vermont, the bobcat (lynx rufus) will be our umbrella species.<\/p>\n

To create the conservation plan, you\u2019ll use a suitability model. The steps for creating a suitability model are as follows:<\/p>\n