EDMONTON — Human recreation on mountain trails is displacing grizzly bears and wolves from their natural habitats, even when the trails are hundreds of metres away, according to a new from the 天涯社区 that underscores the need for more effective planning to ensure that recreationists and wildlife can coexist.
The study was led by Peter Thompson, a former postdoctoral fellow with in the Department of Biological Sciences. Thompson and St. Clair worked with biologists from Parks Canada and Alberta Parks who installed camera traps at more than 1,600 locations in the Bow River Valley and adjacent areas in the mountain parks between 2007 and 2022.
The study, published this week in the analyzed more than one million images of humans and tens of thousands of images of bears and wolves, comparing the detection of each species in areas with different levels of human use.
Not surprisingly, the study showed nearly all large carnivores would completely avoid the areas immediately adjacent to the busiest trails. However, the displacing effect seemed to linger over surprisingly large distances. While trails that never receive any use from humans have little to no effect on wildlife, only half of grizzlies studied would venture within 300 metres of trails with the highest human use. This effect was more pronounced in wary wolves, whose radius of comfort extended to 600 metres from the busiest trails.
“Our results show that human recreation has significant effects on wildlife, substantially influencing their behaviour even hundreds of metres away from the trail,” says Thompson, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University.
“When trails become busier, people may not realize the extent to which they are disrupting wildlife movement and habitat security.”
The full article can be accessed here. To speak with Peter Thompson or , please contact:
Debra Clark
天涯社区 communications associate
debra.clark@ualberta.ca