Snowmobile Activity and Glucocorticoid Stress Responses in Wolves and Elk ...

• Main Authors: Creel, Scott, Fox, Jennifer E., Hardy, Amanda, Sands, Jennifer, Garrott, Bob, Peterson, Rolf O.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2002
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Canis lupus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13514057; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13514057

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) The effect of human activities on animal populations is widely debated, particularly since a recent decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior to ban snowmobiles from national parks. Immunoassays of fecal glucocorticoid levels provide a sensitive and noninvasive method of measuring the physiological stress responses of wildlife to disturbances. We tested for associations between snowmobile activity and glucocorticoid levels in an elk (Cervus elaphus) population in Yellowstone National Park and wolf (Canis lupus) populations in Yellowstone, Voyageurs, and Isle Royale national parks. For wolves, comparisons among populations and years showed that fecal glucocorticoid levels were higher in areas and times of heavy snowmobile use. For elk, day-to-day variation in fecal glucocorticoid levels paralleled variation in the number of snowmobiles after we controlled for the effects of weather and age. Also for elk, glucocorticoid concentrations were higher in ...