Does hunting activity for game species have indirect effects on resource selection by the endangered Florida panther?

Abstract

AbstractHunting activities can affect game species in several ways; however, indirect effects of hunting on non‐game species have received less attention than direct effects on game species, even though such potential effects could be crucial in some situations. There is ongoing concern that the critically endangered Florida panther Puma concolor coryi may be influenced by hunting activity, in terms of changes in panther resource selection and distribution. Nonetheless, understanding the potential effects of hunting activity on the resource selection of this wide‐ranging species has proven difficult, because of the relatively fine‐scale nature of variation in hunting activity and potentially confounding variables regarding intra‐annual variation in hunting activity and hydrology. Here, we leverage hierarchical Bayesian models (conditional mixed logit models) and new data sources to assess the effects of hunting activity at a daily temporal scale via the use of off‐road recreation vehicles (ORVs) on variation in resource selection and distribution of panthers, and we contrast these potential effects to variation in standing ground water, an alternative factor hypothesized to drive variation in panther resource selection. Across a 14‐year dataset spanning 110 radio‐telemetered panthers and over 30 000 panther locations, we found that heightened ORV use by hunters has a small, but statistically significant effect on panther resource selection, but no effect on panther distribution near trails. In contrast, intra‐annual variation in standing ground water generally had stronger and consistent effects on resource selection and on distribution of panthers near recreational trails. Our results provide slightly different conclusions than earlier results on this topic, which are likely driven by our use of more data on panthers, information on hydrology, more quantitative information on hunter activity in this region, and the scale of our analysis.