Abstract
On human-used landscapes, animal behavior is a trade-off between maximizing fitness and minimizing human-derived risk. Understanding risk perception in wildlife can allow mitigation of anthropogenic risk, with benefits to long-term animal fitness. Areas where animals choose to rest should minimize risk from predators, which for large carnivores typically equate to humans. We hypothesize that high human activity leads to selection for habitat security, whereas low activity enables trading security for forage. We investigated selection of resting (bedding) sites by GPS radiocollared adult grizzly bears (n = 10) in a low density population on a multiple-use landscape in Canada. We compared security and foods at resting and random locations while accounting for land use, season, and time of day. On reclaimed mines with low human access, bears selected high horizontal cover far from trails, but did not avoid open (herbaceous) areas, resting primarily at night. In protected areas bears also bedded at night, in areas with berry shrubs and Hedysarum spp., with horizontal cover selected in the summer, during high human access. On public lands with substantial human recreation, bears bedded at day, selected resting sites with high horizontal cover in the summer and habitat edges, with bedding associated with herbaceous foods. These spatial and temporal patterns of selection suggest that bears perceive human-related risk differentially in relation to human activity level, season and time of day, and employ a security-food trade-off strategy. Although grizzly bears are presently not hunted in Alberta, their perceived risks associated with humans influence resting-site selection.
Highlights
Where wildlife and humans coexist, animals can modify their behavior compared to areas without human use, and anticipating these behavioral changes can benefit wildlife conservation [1,2,3]
Additional sites (n = 66) with confirmed bear beds were excluded from analyses because they were located in a buffer area between reclaimed mines and public land which did not fit our land categorization
The models for vertical and horizontal cover selection ratios were the only ones for which the coefficients did not overlap zero, we report the estimates from the top models for these two factors only (Table 3), with estimates for all cover models reported in Table S9 in File S1
Summary
Where wildlife and humans coexist, animals can modify their behavior compared to areas without human use, and anticipating these behavioral changes can benefit wildlife conservation [1,2,3]. Prey species can reduce perceived risk and fear through evolving adaptive behaviors [13] such as choosing resting sites that offer cover (sensu [14]) minimizing the risk of detection. To minimize risk, resting sites often are located in sheltered areas, such as roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) fawns bedding in forest patches [15] and elk resting in low-use wolf areas [16]. Shifting habitats to densely forested areas may decrease risk of predation by cursorial predators but increase vulnerability to stalking predators [17]. Dense cover might have an opposite effect from that desired by the prey, by decreasing detectability of an approaching predator [18] and may be ineffective at eluding olfactory predators [19]. Because risk effects carry less cost than direct predation [20], selection for low predation risk is employed to maximize survival, but a risk-reward trade-off is likely operating in animal decision making
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