Wildlife occupancy and trail use before and after a park opens to the public

Abstract

We investigated changes in wildlife trail use and occupancy from baseline conditions after a park opened to the public; we were curious if wildlife would alter either their use of the trails or the surrounding areas or both in response to the park opening. We generated single-season occupancy estimates as a site-wide occupancy metric from 23 camera traps placed at 0.5 km intervals throughout the park and wildlife and human detection rates to measure intensity of trail use from 10 camera traps placed every 500 m on the trail. We compared the findings from the four seasons before to the four seasons after the park opened to the public. Human trail use increased sharply after opening and then lessened, but was markedly higher than prior to opening. Bobcat (Lynx rufus), coyote (Canis latrans) and gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) did not alter trail use relative to study area occupancy. Two species, black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and gray squirrel (Sciurus griseus) altered trail use, and puma (Puma concolor) and wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) altered both trail and study area use. All species, except for the raccoon (Procyon lotor) and wild turkey, recovered to pre-opening conditions, by the winter (that is, after approximately 9 months) following opening.