Predator and prey species have opposing responses to recreational trail use

Abstract

While many ecological studies have investigated the impacts of recreation and trails on wildlife, we lack an understanding of how wildlife respond to recreational trails that exhibit seasonally dynamic levels of human activity. We used camera traps to assess changes in the presence of mammals along a recreational trail before and during the summer tourism season in Crested Butte, CO. We used linear mixed-effects regression models to explain variation in the ungulate and carnivore detection rates as a function of whether the cameras were on or off a trail, on an established versus proposed trail, and how these interacted with the presence of dogs, humans, and for ungulates, carnivores. We controlled for the potentially confounding effects of distance from trailhead and controlled for detectability by quantifying the proportion of each camera’s detection area that was covered with trees using ArcMap. We found that deer and elk detection rates were higher in July and in the current trail section, suggesting that prey species prefer areas with high levels of human activity. Carnivore species detection rates were higher in the proposed trail section in June, suggesting that predator species prefer areas with low levels of human activity. Overall, we found that both prey and predator species show rapid, but opposing, behavioral changes in response to season and recreational trail use.