Walking in Each Other’s Footsteps: Do Animal Trail Makers Confer Resilience against Trampling Tourists?

David B Croft

doi:10.3390/environments6070083

Abstract

Modern humans, and other hominins before them, have walked across the landscapes of most continents for many millennia. They shared these landscapes with other large animals, especially mammalian herbivores and their predators, whose footsteps defined trails through the vegetation. Most of the diversity in the wild species is now concentrated in protected areas and visited by large numbers of tourists who may walk amongst them. This review examines the literature about medium-large animal and tourist trampling impacts to uncover any marriage between animal ecology and nature-based tourism research. Methodology is comparable. Animal ecology has focused on the propagation of grazing and trampling effects from a point source (usually water). Tourism research has focused on trail structure (formal/informal, hardened, wide/narrow) and the propagation of effects (especially weeds) into the hinterland and along the trail. There is little research to substantiate an evolutionary view of trampling impacts. At least tourists venturing off formed trails may reduce impacts by following animal trails with caveats, such as risk of encounters with dangerous animals and disruption of animal behavior. This is an under-studied topic but a fertile ground for research, aided by modern tools like trail cameras and geographically enabled devices borne by tourists.

Highlights

In the human evolutionary tree, Australopithecines were likely the first hominins to walk bipedally on African landscapes around 3.5 million years [1]
Trampling of vegetation has been at the forefront of ecological impacts identified in nature-based tourism and recreation (e.g., [7]). In these natural settings other species, such as mammalian herbivores, are trampling vegetation and leaving well-defined paths. These impacts have been studied in the context of sustainable livestock production and the maintenance of a functional landscape, alien and invasive species’ management, and wildlife management in protected areas
Whether livestock or wildlife, leave footprints and grazing impacts. The aim of this short review is to examine (1) whether animal ecology can inform the appropriate management of trampling impacts by nature-based tourists, (2) the degree to which paths of trampled vegetation can be shared between people and wildlife so that the impacts are not separate and additive, and (3) perceptions of landscape degradation and the relationship between trampling resistance and the medium-large mammal fauna

Summary

Introduction

In the human evolutionary tree, Australopithecines were likely the first hominins to walk bipedally on African landscapes around 3.5 million years [1]. In these natural settings other species, such as mammalian herbivores, are trampling vegetation and leaving well-defined paths In animal ecology, these impacts have been studied in the context of sustainable livestock production and the maintenance of a functional landscape, alien and invasive species’ management, and wildlife management in protected areas. Whether livestock or wildlife, leave footprints and grazing impacts The aim of this short review is to examine (1) whether animal ecology can inform the appropriate management of trampling impacts by nature-based tourists, (2) the degree to which paths of trampled vegetation can be shared between people and wildlife so that the impacts are not separate and additive, and (3) perceptions of landscape degradation and the relationship between trampling resistance and the medium-large mammal fauna. The review focuses on terrestrial landscapes but recognizes a significant literature about trampling on reefs, saltmarshes, and tidal zones

Trampling Impacts of Hooves and Hard Landings

Tourists and Wildlife in Each Other’s Footsteps

Pathway formed byby regular along a

The Trouble with Trampling

Findings

Conclusions