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Behavioural Response To Human Activity: Chapter 1: Carnivores in Human-Influenced Landscapes

Carnivores exhibit various behaviors to avoid human activity such as hunters or traffic, often becoming more nocturnal to reduce encounters. They may also avoid benign human activities if it disrupts foraging, but some species can habituate to predictable human presence. Different carnivore species show varying levels of tolerance to urban environments depending on diet flexibility and food availability within urban areas as well as responses to infrastructure like roads that some species like bobcats avoid crossing more than foxes. Individual carnivores also differ in their use of urban landscapes, like male bobcats using urban areas more than females.

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22 views1 page

Behavioural Response To Human Activity: Chapter 1: Carnivores in Human-Influenced Landscapes

Carnivores exhibit various behaviors to avoid human activity such as hunters or traffic, often becoming more nocturnal to reduce encounters. They may also avoid benign human activities if it disrupts foraging, but some species can habituate to predictable human presence. Different carnivore species show varying levels of tolerance to urban environments depending on diet flexibility and food availability within urban areas as well as responses to infrastructure like roads that some species like bobcats avoid crossing more than foxes. Individual carnivores also differ in their use of urban landscapes, like male bobcats using urban areas more than females.

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mamillapalli sri harsha
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Chapter 1: Carnivores in human-influenced landscapes

felids, have evolved cryptic behaviours with which to catch prey and that this elusive
behaviour may pre-dispose them to successfully avoid humans.

Behavioural response to human activity


Behavioural adaptation to human disturbances which may pose a threat (e.g.
hunters or traffic) usually involves spatial or temporal avoidance. For example, activity
often becomes more nocturnal in highly exploited populations so as to avoid hunters
(e.g. coyotes, Kitchen et al. 2000) and in or near urban areas, as documented in bobcats
and coyotes (Riley et al. 2003, Riley 2006, George and Crooks 2006), black bears
(Ursus americanus) (Beckmann and Berger 2003a) and grey wolves (Theuerkauf et al.
2003). Disturbance may range from hikers to hunters; and from relatively pristine
habitat to more developed landscapes with agriculture, roads and urban settlements.
Avoidance of ‘benign’ human activity may be disadvantageous if it disrupts foraging or
other behaviours to such an extent that survival may be compromised (e.g. Kerley et al.
2002). In some cases, habituation to predictable human activities may be preferable to
avoidance behaviour (George and Crooks 2006).
Different levels of ‘tolerance’ to urban areas are observed among carnivore
species (e.g. Crooks 2002, Riley et al. 2003, Riley 2006). Urban tolerance is likely to be
associated with the degree of diet flexibility and the availability of food resources
within urban areas compared to rural or wild areas (next section), as well as species-
specific responses to human activities, roads and the urban environment per se. Within
developed areas some species are more sensitive to roads than others, for example Riley
(2006) found that bobcats appeared to avoid crossing paved roads, whilst foxes crossed
roads regularly. Intraspecific variation in use of urban areas has also been documented,
for example, in southern and northern California male bobcats used areas near or in
urban areas more than did female bobcats (Riley et al. 2003, Riley 2006). If female
carnivores tend to be less tolerant of landscapes with high human activity this
knowledge should be incorporated into management plans (Riley 2006). There is
evidence to support the hypothesis that ‘street wise’ individuals which regularly use
developed habitats may learn to utilise roads safely whilst naïve individuals who use
urban areas less often are at greater risk of vehicle mortality; for example raccoons
(Procyon lotor) in urban areas of north-eastern Illinois suffered less traffic mortalities
than raccoons in suburban and rural areas (Prange et al. 2003).

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