The reading of Monti et al. (2018a) has brought to my mind several issues that may be worth considering in relation to present and future human/wildlife coexistence. First, it made me think of how fine-grained conservation has become in the 21st century. Only a few decades ago bears, wolves, otters, whales or birds of prey (to name a few) were still being killed by active human persecution. However, the change in attitudes towards predators has been so great (see Martínez-Abraín et al., 2008a) that our present concerns spin around preventing any type of discomfort to our respected study models. One of the sources of likely human disturbance is outdoor recreational activities. The effect of these activities on wildlife is a topic that has resisted quantitative systematic review (see Martínez-Abraín et al., 2010) and hence further information is welcome. The correlational evidence provided by Monti et al. (2018a), linking the frequency of boat passages within 250 m of osprey nests with reduced breeding performance inside the Scandola MPA (Corsica) but not outside, is quite convincing, despite the existence of some alternative explanations (i.e. density-dependence), as stated by the authors. However, one must remember that the osprey is a long-lived species and that the geometric growth rate of long-lived species is much more sensitive to survival than to reproduction. That is, the Corsican population is not going to be seriously jeopardized because of a reduction in breeding performance. It is in fact the largest osprey population in the Mediterranean, and has increased from only three pairs in the 1970s to 34 pairs in 2011 (Monti et al., 2018a). Hence, I think that concerns about decreased breeding success are more of an ethical issue than a biological one. I agree that 21st century conservation needs to be that ethical and fine-grained, but it is also good to keep in mind where we come from and how fast the change in attitudes has been, especially in southern Europe. In addition, we take for granted that the Mediterranean populations of ospreys are characterized by being sea-cliff nesters, and this habit is commonly attributed to their use of the marine environment for hunting (Monti et al., 2018b). However, we recently suggested (Martínez-Abraín, Jiménez & Oro, 2018) that facultative tree/cliff nesting raptors use cliffs currently as a consequence of intense past human persecution, rather than because of preference. From this perspective, osprey populations in central/northern Europe would nest mainly in trees because they were not so intensively persecuted in the recent past. Hence, tree-nesting could actually be independent of hunting in freshwater lakes. In this sense, our prediction is that most facultative cliff-nesting raptor species will increasingly shift to trees for nesting in the near future, and that this may have positive demographic consequences for them, because the limiting factor of availability of high-quality cliffs will vanish. We have shown that some large raptor species such as golden eagles, Bonelli's eagles or booted eagles are already doing that in Spain (Martínez-Abraín et al., 2018). This will most likely happen as well with osprey. In fact, some bold osprey pairs have already started this shift at the Balearic Islands, nesting in pine trees close to urbanized areas (J. Muntaner, pers. comm.), and some osprey pairs already use Spanish reservoirs (Ferrer & Morandini, 2018). Centuries-old human persecution selected for shy individuals that are afraid of humans and nest in inaccessible places, but the lack of persecution during the last 60–70 years is starting to change things, bringing in new wildlife. It is well known that flight initiation distances in colonies of social birds are smaller in highly visited colonies, provided that people are respectful of wildlife (see Martínez-Abraín et al., 2008b). Genetically bold and/or culturally habituated eagles will be less reluctant to coexist with people in close proximity if the trend of peaceful coexistence continues. Hence, the bold/shy nature of individuals could be very informative for the current debate on the suitability of translocating osprey chicks from northern to southern European populations (Ferrer & Morandini, 2018). This is so because northern chicks could bring bold genes to Mediterranean populations, accelerating the loss of fear towards humans. It is also worth remembering that, according to Gill, Norris & Sutherland (2001), the degree of disturbance of human activities on wildlife is inversely proportional to the amount of alternative habitat available for the individuals to move to when disturbed. In a similar study to that of Monti et al. (2018a) we found, 16 years ago, that the rise in tourist boats did not affect the overall number of breeding pairs or the productivity of Eleonora's falcons nesting in the small Columbretes archipelago (a marine and terrestrial reserve in the western Mediterranean). However, the human disturbance caused a shift in the degree of occupancy of the volcanic islets by the falcons, favouring the islets with lower human presence close to colonies (Martínez-Abraín et al., 2002). The birds solved the problem by shifting spatially because they had the option to do so. Moreover, some authors have found that a priori negative human impacts (such as the construction of an airport or a wind farm) have forced some small social raptor populations (Montagu's harriers and griffon vultures) to abandon their comfort zones, and that this has unexpectedly had positive consequences for the species via dispersal to high-quality but still empty sites (Oro, Jiménez & Oro, 2012). Finally, it is also relevant to keep in mind that often negative human impacts occur only in interaction with some other ecological agent, rather than operating alone. In a classical example, Sergio et al. (2004) reported that corvids had negative effects on the neighbouring peregrine falcons in the Italian Alps only when humans had recently passed by the nests and the incubating birds had left them unprotected. The same interaction can be pictured from the opposite perspective. Human impact on nesting birds often only results in negative consequences if this effect interacts with an ecological factor, such as the presence of an egg/chick predator close to the nests. Importantly, the abundance of facultative opportunistic predators (e.g. large gulls or ravens) could have been in turn favoured previously by the availability of fishing discards or garbage dumps in the proximity of colonies due to humans. Hence, the direct effect of tourist presence will only have negative biological consequences if the indirect human effect has predated that of tourists and it is mediated by the presence of subsidized opportunistic consumers (Oro et al., 2013). In summary, we may need new conservation strategies and policies for new wildlife, within a new social context of pacific coexistence with wildlife, for the future. Let's keep that in mind.