Anthropogenic landscape of fear shapes deer space use but not browsing levels

Description

Human-wildlife conflicts as a result of increasing deer numbers and expanding ranges pose challenges to managers worldwide. Current population management practices fail to mitigate impacts of high deer numbers on agriculture, forestry, ecology, public health and traffic. Moreover, there is a broad societal call for preventive, non-lethal population management. We tested if deer space use can be steered with zonation of recreation, hunting activities and spatial planning of hiking trails. We measured deer space use by conducting pellet-group counts and assessed browsing levels on planted tree saplings close to and far away from walking tracks, across areas with different recreation and hunting regimes. Deer dropping counts were lower in the proximity of tracks, except for in refuge areas (no hunting & no recreation). At a larger scale, deer pellet-group numbers were highest in refuge areas, and not different between recreation and hunting areas. While we found strong effects on deer space use, these effects did not cascade down to the vegetation as browsing levels were not different close and far from walking tracks, nor between areas with different recreation and hunting regimes. Our study indicates that humans affect deer space use, but that this does not lead to measurable differences in browsing levels.

Period	13-Feb-2019
Event title	Netherlands Annual Ecology Meeting 2019
Event type	Conference
Conference number	12
Organiser	Netherlands Ecological Research Network (NERN)
Location	Lunteren, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National