Impacts of tourism and hunting on a large herbivore’s spatio-temporal behavior in and around a French protected area

Abstract

Abstract Human disturbance is of growing concern owing to the increase of human activities in natural areas. Animal responses are manifold (immediate and/or delayed, short and/or long-lasting, with numerous behaviors affected) so that comprehensive studies are few. Here, we contrasted days with low or high tourism or hunting pressures to assess direct (daytime) and indirect (nighttime) responses of 66 GPS-collared Mediterranean mouflon Ovis gmelini musimon × Ovis sp. from the Caroux-Espinouse massif (southern France) in terms of movement, habitat use and daily activity. We took advantage of the fact that both human activities occurred during different periods and with different intensities in 3 contiguous areas (among which a protected area without hunting and with limited tourism) to compare their influence on mouflon behavior. Mouflon response to tourism was limited to the area where tourism pressure was intense with a decrease in diurnal activity compensated during nighttime by an increase of nocturnal activity. Hunting had marked consequences in the two hunted areas, with a similar shift in activity between day and night, a decrease in movement sinuosity during daytime by females and an increase in nocturnal use of the best foraging habitats by males, all suggesting an increase in foraging activities during nights following disturbance. The diurnal activity of mouflon living in the protected area was also modified during hunting period, but without nocturnal compensation. These findings revealed that the impact of hunting was higher than tourism, with several components of animal behavior affected. This calls for further research on hunting side-effects in terms of disturbance, especially as it occurs during both the adverse climatic season and the breeding period.