COVID-19 Restrictions in a Nature Reserve Reveal the Costs of Human Presence for the Threatened Nubian Ibex (Capra nubiana)

Yuval Zukerman,Oded Berger-Tal,Zehava Sigal

doi:10.3389/fevo.2021.751515

Yuval Zukerman, Oded Berger-Tal + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.751515

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Abstract

The increasing pressure of ecotourism on wildlife in their natural habitats leads many wild animals to alter their behaviors. The restrictions issued in many places due to COVID-19 provide a rare opportunity to examine wildlife behavior in nature reserves with reduced human presence, and to reveal the impact of human visitation on the behaviors and fitness of local wildlife species. In 2019 and 2020 we placed trail cameras next to two natural springs in the Israeli Negev Desert, Ein-Avdat and Ein-Shaviv, located 9 km apart. Both sites serve as the main water source for local Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana) populations, but Ein-Avdat is situated within a popular national park into which visitors’ entrance was restricted due to COVID-19 regulations in 2020, while Ein-Shaviv is more remote and thus attracts only few visitors regardless of COVID-19 regulations. Our study revealed that during 2020, ibex in Ein-Avdat arrived to drink earlier in the day and the population’s Female:Kids ratio more than doubled. These changes were not observed in Ein-Shaviv. We found that the daily number of visitors in Ein-Avdat affected the arrival time of ibex to the water pool. We conclude that the reduced number of visitors to Ein-Avdat in 2020 compared to 2019 may have allowed ibex to arrive in preferred hours, and may have contributed to the increased kid-to-females ratio. Our study shows that behavioral adaptions to human visitation in nature reserves might carry a high fitness cost.

Highlights

Human’s attraction to nature probably offers one of the most effective tools for education and for raising awareness to nature conservation (Fennell, 2015; Soga and Gaston, 2016)
As the global ecotourism market grows and the number of humans visiting national parks and protected areas around the globe keeps increasing, wildlife in protected areas are increasingly exposed to human disturbances
With the global ecotourism industry generating over eight billion ecotourists a year (Balmford et al, 2015), wildlife are being pressured either to displace into less favorable locations

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Human’s attraction to nature probably offers one of the most effective tools for education and for raising awareness to nature conservation (Fennell, 2015; Soga and Gaston, 2016). Investing more time in vigilance behavior, or spending more time in refuges, will negatively affect the time available for foraging (i.e., the well-studied predationstarvation tradeoff; Hochman and Kotler, 2007; Cañadas Santiago et al, 2020; Montero-Quintana et al, 2020) Another example occurs in the Tatra National Park in Poland, where Tatra chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra tatrica) moved more when they were close to hiking trails at the expense of foraging and resting (Peksa and Ciach, 2018). It is difficult to assess the effects ecotourism have on the behavior and fitness of seemingly adapted wildlife populations Understanding these effects, especially in nature reserves, is essential for proper management of protected areas (Haysmith and Hunt, 1995; Roe et al, 1997; Higginbottom et al, 2001; Wolf et al, 2019). Ibex need to drink almost daily and in the absence of hunting and their main natural predators (i.e., leopards); water is the main factor limiting their distribution (Habibi, 1994; Gross et al, 1995)

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DISCUSSION

ETHICS STATEMENT