Abstract
In some wilderness areas, wildlife encounter vehicles disrupt their behaviour and habitat use. Changing driver behaviour has been proposed where bans on vehicle use are politically unpalatable, but the efficacy of vehicle setbacks and reduced speeds remains largely untested. We characterised bird-vehicle encounters in terms of driver behaviour and the disturbance caused to birds, and tested whether spatial buffers or lower speeds reduced bird escape responses on open beaches. Focal observations showed that: i) most drivers did not create sizeable buffers between their vehicles and birds; ii) bird disturbance was frequent; and iii) predictors of probability of flushing (escape) were setback distance and vehicle type (buses flushed birds at higher rates than cars). Experiments demonstrated that substantial reductions in bird escape responses required buffers to be wide (> 25 m) and vehicle speeds to be slow (< 30 km h-1). Setback distances can reduce impacts on wildlife, provided that they are carefully designed and derived from empirical evidence. No speed or distance combination we tested, however, eliminated bird responses. Thus, while buffers reduce response rates, they are likely to be much less effective than vehicle-free zones (i.e. beach closures), and rely on changes to current driver behaviour.
Highlights
Protected areas generally have a dual mandate of protecting important and irreplaceable features of the natural environment (‘conservation’), whilst providing visitors with opportunities to experience nature or engage in recreational activities [1,2]
The potential for conflict between conservation and human use is starkly evident on sandy beaches and coastal dunes, where motorised transport is a widely practiced recreational activity, especially in Australia and the US
There were three key information gaps which we addressed in this study: 1) essential attributes defining vehiclewildlife interactions on beaches are ill-defined, 2) the metrics for setback distances during vehicle encounters have not been determined, and 3) the efficacy of setback distances is undocumented for open-coast beaches
Summary
Protected areas generally have a dual mandate of protecting important and irreplaceable features of the natural environment (‘conservation’), whilst providing visitors with opportunities to experience nature or engage in recreational activities [1,2]. Meeting these dual objectives is often difficult, and the ratio between environmental costs and economic benefits is a dynamic one, often driven by political and cultural forces [3]. Vehicles are a well-documented threat to wildlife through mortality, disturbance (behavioural or physiological disruption), and other processes such as air pollution and habitat alterations [4,5,6]. Other processes demonstrated in terrestrial settings, such as the transportation of weeds, presumably apply to beaches and dunes [18]
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