Personality and Other Factors Mediating Ungulate Flight Initiation Distances

Abstract

Flight response or initiation distances are important for wildlife management because these metrics can quantify changes in human-wildlife relationships such as tolerance and habituation, provide insight into the impacts of predator-prey interactions, and help mitigate human-wildlife conflicts by informing the prescription of minimum distances humans should maintain from wild animals. Despite the importance of flight response measurements, and the ubiquity of their measurement in active wildlife management programs, the relative importance of various environmental and behavioural factors influencing flight response in wild animals remains poorly understood. In this study I used results from 809 flight initiation distance trials on wild adult female elk, including marked individuals for whom I had previously quantified their personalities. These elk were parts of both highly and less habituated herds in the protected area of Banff National Park. Using linear models I identified "personality" and a correlate of wolf predation "risk" as the most important predictors of flight initiation distance. Boldness of personality type predicted lower flight distances, while recent exposure to predation risk increased flight distances, independent of personality. I used Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that the accuracy of mean flight response measures could be improved significantly with field methods controlling for personality and group-level risk variations, and that those controlling measures could be obtained using two easily observable correlates: position in herd (bold animals found on the perimeter) and herd clustering (herd structure tighter when currently or recently exposed to risk). I showed that fewer FID trials were necessary to obtain accurate means when these methods applied. Lastly, I showed how few FID trials were needed to obtain an accurate mean for any individual, due to the behavioural consistency of personality. These results showed that personality is the single most important factor influencing variation in ungulate flight initiation distance, followed by exposure to risk, and that both of these factors should be accounted for when collecting flight initiation data.