Assessing the impacts of recreation on habitat use by mammals in an
isolated alpine protected area
Abstract
The management objectives of many protected areas must meet the dual
mandates of protecting biodiversity while providing recreational
opportunities. Balancing these mandates is made difficult by constraints
on monitoring trends in the status of biodiversity and impacts of
recreation. Using detections from 45 camera traps deployed between July
2019 and September 2021, we assessed the potential impacts of recreation
on spatial and temporal habitat use for 8 medium- and large-bodied
terrestrial mammals in an isolated alpine protected area: Cathedral
Provincial Park, Canada. We hypothesized that some wildlife perceive a
level of threat from people, such that they avoid ‘risky times’ or
‘risky places’ associated with human activity. Other species may benefit
from associating with people, be it through access to anthropogenic
resource subsidies or filtering of competitors/predators that are more
human-averse (i.e., human shield hypothesis). Specifically, we predicted
that large carnivores would show the greatest segregation from people
while mesocarnivores and ungulates would associate spatially with
people. We found spatial co-occurrence between ungulates and recreation,
consistent with the human shield hypothesis, but did not see the
predicted negative relationship between larger carnivores and humans,
except for coyotes (Canis latrans). Temporally, all species other than
cougars (Puma concolor) had activity patterns significantly different
from that of recreationists, suggesting potential displacement in the
temporal niche. Wolves (Canis lupus) and mountain goats (Oreamnos
americanus) showed shifts in temporal activity away from people on
recreation trails relative to off-trail areas, providing further
evidence of potential displacement. Our results highlight the importance
of monitoring spatial and temporal interactions between recreation
activities and wildlife communities, in order to ensure the
effectiveness of protected areas in an era of increasing human impacts.