Wildlife in western Alberta, such as grizzly bears and wolves living along popular hiking trails, are steering clear of the area, according to one new study, even when the trails are hundreds of metres away from the animals.
The research done by the University of Alberta was led by Peter Thompson, a former postdoctoral fellow with Colleen Cassady St. Clair in the Department of Biological Sciences.
The pair worked with biologists from Parks Canada and Alberta Parks, who installed camera traps at more than 1,600 locations in the Bow River Valley and nearby areas in the mountain parks between 2007 and 2022.
The study highlights the need for more effective planning to ensure that recreationists and wildlife can coexist, particularly in the bustling Bow River Valley, which has long served as a natural corridor connecting the prairies to the Continental Divide.
Researchers analyzed more than one million images of humans and tens of thousands of images of bears and wolves, comparing the detection of each species in areas with different levels of human use.
Using statistical models, Thompson estimated human use over the entire landscape and then determined the likelihood that grizzly bears and wolves would be present in various areas.
Researchers found that animals did indeed stray away from the popular trails. However, to their surprise, the displacing effect seemed to linger over large distances.
The study revealed that 50% of the displacing effect of humans on high-use trails was still apparent 300 metres away for grizzly bears. This effect was even larger for wolves, with that effect extending to a whopping 600 metres from the busiest trails. Thompson says these “zones of influence” caused by people are much larger than previously thought.
“We initially thought bears might use hiking trails as efficient routes when humans weren’t around, but they actually avoid these areas altogether,” said Thompson in a news release, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University. “Our results show that human recreation has significant effects on wildlife, substantially influencing their behaviour even hundreds of metres away from the trail.”
Thompson added that he hoped the findings would help land managers in the Bow River Valley create safe, quiet spaces for grizzly bears, wolves, and other large carnivores that require undisturbed habitats for movement.