Abstract
Hunting can be used as a tool for wildlife management, through limitation of population densities and dissuading game from using sensitive areas. The success of these approaches requires in depth knowledge of prey movement. Indeed, movement decisions of game during hunting may affect the killing success of hunters as well as the subsequent location of surviving animals. We thus investigated red deer movement responses to drive hunts and their causal factors. We studied 34 hunting events in the National Estate of Chambord (France) and thereby provided a fine-scale characterization of the immediate and delayed movement responses of red deer to drive hunts. Red deer responded to drive hunts either by immediately fleeing the hunted area, or by initially remaining before ultimately fleeing after the hunters had departed. A few hours after the hunt, all individuals were located in distant areas (> 2 kilometres) from the hunted area. Immediate flight responses were less common when drive hunts occurred in areas with dense understorey. However, neither beater/dog densities nor site familiarity influenced the immediate flight decision. Following a drive hunt, red deer remained outside the hunted areas for periods twice as long compared to periods when no hunting occurred (34 hours vs. 17 hours). Such knowledge of game movement rates in response to drive hunts may help the development of informed management policy for hunted red deer populations.
Highlights
The encroachment of human activities into wildlife habitats has provoked extensive demographic and distributional changes in several species [1,2]
Using GPS data collected in the National Estate of Chambord (NEC; France), we studied their movement relative to the hunted area, both during the immediate phase when hunting was taking place, and during the delayed phase after hunting had finished
In the present study, red deer responses to hunting were investigated as a continuous response, but by distinguishing two phases: (i) the immediate phase at the time of the drive hunt and (ii) the delayed phase after the departure of hunters
Summary
The encroachment of human activities into wildlife habitats has provoked extensive demographic and distributional changes in several species [1,2]. Immediate and delayed movement responses of female red deer (Cervus elaphus) to drive hunts and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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