Hans VethA new study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, shows that human activity on hiking trails makes grizzly bears and wolves avoid those areas more than previously thought.
The research team was led by Peter Thompson, a former post-doctoral fellow in the department of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, with help from his academic supervisor, Colleen Cassady St. Clair. St. Clair is a professor in the faculty of science at the U of A.
The team gathered data from more than 1,500 camera traps installed in the Rocky Mountains region, including Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay National Park.
“Our camera data set was an amalgamation of a few different protocols. Typically, you want your cameras to be placed randomly on the landscape,” Thompson said.
Volunteers helped to install the camera traps and dedicated hours to watching the footage for grizzly bears and wolves. “We used as much data as we could get our hands on,” he added.
As for the choice of study animal, the researchers prioritized large carnivores for several reasons.
“Grizzly bears are considered threatened in Alberta. So there’s a bit of interest in them to make sure that their populations are doing okay,” Thompson said. Wolves, who were also monitored, are particularly sensitive to human presence.
“Grizzly bears and wolves [are] common enough to detect, but also not so common that we’re not worried about their populations,” he said.
Study shows that grizzly bears and wolves avoid areas highly populated by humans
In the study, a purposefully designed statistical model based on the Poisson process framework was used to measure human detection rate on these cameras. This information was then used to find out how human activity affected the detection rates of grizzly bears and wolves.
According to Thompson, the study showed that grizzly bears and wolves avoided the areas where humans lingered. They reappeared on camera traps more consistently away from human hubs at distances of 267 metres for grizzly bears and 576 metres for wolves.
Thompson said that this discovery gives a greater sense of how far human presence pushes away wildlife from their habitat zones. Additionally, it gives an understanding of how to support their natural territory when it is shared by outdoor attractions like national parks, Thompson said.
“Our goal is to find a solution that works for everybody, humans and wildlife included,” Thompson added.
Thompson said that a high quality habitat would thrive 500 to 600 meters away from nearest trails. For park developers, this may mean bunching a group of trails together and leaving a wide open space for animals, or building more trails in places that are not good habitats for wildlife.
“It’s really important to do a bit of research before visiting an area,” Thompson says
One of the hidden problems for the preservation of habitats is the existence of undesignated trails. These trails are not marked by the official sources, according to Thompson. He mentioned that trekking on such trails is most often accidental, but it would help to keep wildlife spaces better monitored and protected if people used trails designed for human use by park workers.
“If people stuck to the designated trails, the ones that were thoughtfully crafted by the provincial parks or whoever is managing the area, then there would be a lot more of these open spaces for wildlife without even having to really change anything on the map,” Thompson said.
He also mentioned that staying on designated trails is a great way to support local wildlife wherever you go and make your contribution to their well-being.
“It’s really important to do a bit of research before visiting an area wherever you go, and make sure that the trail that you want to take a hike on is listed on the website of Albertaparks.ca or wherever you are intending to visit.”
