Classification of Pronghorn Fawning Habitat Using Landsat Thematic Mapper Data‪.‬

Abstract. -- Management of wildlife resources requires accurate information about habitat characteristics. Six maps of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) fawning habitat from the Trans-Pecos region of Texas were developed from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) data. The goal was to classify fawning habitat and compare unsupervised and supervised habitat classification techniques. Unsupervised and supervised classification training sets were developed for each of two TM scenes taken during the 1990 and 1991 pronghorn breeding season. Data from 12 reference microhabitat variables were used to assess accuracy of the classifications. Additionally, principal components analysis was evaluated as a data reduction technique for the TM data sets. Unsupervised classification accuracy for 1990 and 1991 maps were 41 and 44%, respectively; supervised classification accuracy for each respective map was 29 and 39%. Accuracy of maps after principal components analysis was 31% for unsupervised and 69% for supervised classifications. Supervised training sets performed better than unsupervised training sets in identifying specific fawning habitat signatures. Of the training sets examined, the 1990 supervised set performed the best in identifying critical fawning habitat during drought conditions. **********