Major roadwork impacts the space use behaviour of gray wolf

Abstract

Roads are known to impact wildlife in numerous ways and wolf response to roads was shown to vary with human activity level and road type. We assessed the impacts of increased road-disturbance intensity associated to a major roadwork on wolf movements and space use in eastern Canada: from 2006 to 2010, the provincial two-lane Highway 175 has been enlarged to a four-lane divided highway. We hypothesized that the level of human activity relative to the construction was the most important factor driving wolf response to road enlargement because of the risk of human encounter. We tracked 22 wolves belonging to nine packs using GPS telemetry, focusing our efforts on individuals with territories encompassing a part of the highway being modified or a similar but unmodified highway (control). Impacts of the road enlargement were assessed using resource selection functions and highway crossing events by wolves as roadworks progressed. During the denning period, crossing rate decreased from the beginning to the completion of the road enlargement (0.66±0.16 (SE) to 0.15±0.11crossing/km/100-days). Wolves stayed ca. 300m farther away from active road construction sites than from segments without roadwork or where roadwork activity had temporarily stopped, except during nomadic period. Negative impacts of road modification on crossing rate and space use were more noticeable during the denning period and faded as pups aged. We then demonstrated the wolf capacity to adjust its behaviour to local disturbances and the importance of human activity level in explaining response to anthropogenic disturbances.