Protected areas frequently have the dual goals of conserving natural resources while providing recreation opportunities to the public. Wildlife preservation is central to conserving natural ecosystems and is an important social and economic resource in protected areas. Trail-based recreation is common in protected areas, and these trails provide an infrastructure for visitors to travel through wildlife habitat. However, there is concern that this infrastructure could affect the quality of wildlife habitat by bringing more people into secluded areas, thus disturbing animals. In this study we used an experimental design to investigate the impacts of the construction of a new hiking trail on six terrestrial vertebrate species: white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), northern raccoon (Procyon lotor), coyote (Canis latrans), wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), and Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana). Using camera traps, we monitored animal use of the study area before, during, and after construction over thirteen months at three sites: along the trail, near the trail, and at a control site.
Results/Conclusions
Through zero-inflated Poisson regression and occupancy analyses, we found statistically significant impacts of trail building and trail presence on four of the six species studied. During trail construction, deer decreased their use of the near-trail sites and coyotes decreased their use both along and near the trail. Both species returned to the area at normal rates once the trail was complete. Raccoons showed increased use along the trail during construction. Squirrels were the only species to have a significant effect after trail building was complete, showing decreased use along the trail itself, but not in the near-trail sites. We conclude that while trail building has impacts on the habitat quality for some species, these mostly occur during trail building. To further minimize these impacts, we suggest that trail building should be restricted to a short time period in which species of concern are least sensitive, especially where endangered species are present. Our study demonstrates that recreation and wildlife can coexist and need not be exclusive.