Decreased deer-human conflicts by increased experienced predations risk

Decreased deer-human conflicts by increased experienced predations risk: altered sensorial environments as a management tool

When historically natural predators have been almost extirpated, and human presence have increased instead, it has influenced the fear experienced by deer and thus how they use the landscape. Now when the predators are returning to many areas, the experienced fear will also change again. An important research question is if these shifts in deer behaviour can be used for management purposes to avoid human-deer conflicts. In this project, we will quantify if an artificial landscape of fear on deer can be induced by displaying wolf and human cues (visual, olfactory, acoustic). Reindeer is used as an experimental control. This is done by deploying camera traps paired to supplementary feeding sites while displaying artificial cues in forests near Umeå. It is predicted that the combination of cues triggers a stronger fear response in deer than the individual cues. Secondly, we aim to test if the artificially induced landscape of fear reduces human-wildlife conflict. We will do this by deploying the previously described experiment with the most promising cue in production forests and cropland in two areas (Järnäs halvön close to Umeå and Öster Malma close to Södermanland), which collectively represent the different land uses present in Sweden, range in human population density and host all deer species but in differing abundance. We predict that deer avoid forests and cropland with artificial cues. However, we expect a stronger response in cropland because deer are not limited by food and thus may incur extra energy expenditure to escape. If successful, the developed methods will directly contribute to Sweden's environmental quality goals on ‘Sustainable Consumption & Production’ & ‘Life on land’ and contribute to novel wildlife management tools.

Juan Ignacio Ramirez, Umeå University

500 000 SEK