Data from: Low levels of outdoor recreation alter wildlife behavior ...

• Main Authors: Sytsma, Mira, Lewis, Tania, Gardner, Beth, Prugh, Laura
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: FOS Natural sciences; fear effects; protected areas PAs; occupancy; human-wildlife interactions; human shield effect; Alces alces; glacier; Ursus arctos; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hx3ffbghb; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.hx3ffbghb

Public interest in nature-based recreation is growing, including visitation to protected areas. However, the level of recreation in these areas that causes detectable changes in wildlife behavior remains unknown, and many studies that investigate wildlife responses to humans do so in high-visitation areas. We used camera traps to investigate the spatial and temporal responses of brown bears (Ursus arctos), black bears (Ursus americanus), moose (Alces alces), and wolves (Canis lupis) to experimentally manipulated levels of human activity in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska during summers 2017 and 2018. Human activity was restricted at some sites and concentrated at others, and these human impact treatments were swapped mid-season. The park has very low on-land visitation (~40,000 on-land tourists per year), making it a unique study system to investigate wildlife responses to low levels of human activity. Detections did not exceed five per week for any species unless human activity was absent (zero photos of ...