Cougar space use and movements in the wildland–urban landscape of western Washington

Abstract

The wildland-urban interface lies at the confluence of human-dominated and wild landscapes, creating a number of management and conservation challenges. Because wildlife ecology, behavior, and evolution at this interface are shaped by both natural and human phenomena, this requires greater understanding of how diverse factors affect ecosystem and population processes. We illustrate the challenge of understanding and managing a frequent and often undesired inhabitant of the wildland-urban landscape, the cougar (Puma concolor). In wildland and residential areas of western Washington State, USA, we captured and radiotracked 27 cougars to model space use and understand the role of landscape features in interactions (sightings, encounters, and depredations) between cougars and humans. Resource utilization functions (RUFs) identified cougar use of areas with features that were probably attractive to prey, influential on prey vulnerability, and associated with limited or no residential development. Early-successional forest (þ), conifer forest (þ), distance to road (À), residential density (À), and elevation (À) were significant positive and negative predictors of use for the population, whereas use of other landscape features was highly variable. Space use and movement rates in wildland and residential areas were similar because cougars used wildland-like forest patches, reserves, and corridors in residential portions of their home range. The population RUF was a good predictor of confirmed cougar interactions, with 72% of confirmed reports occurring in the 50% of the landscape predicted to be medium-high and high cougar use areas. We believe that there is a threshold residential density at which the level of development modifies the habitat but maintains enough wildland characteristics to encourage moderate levels of cougar use and maximize the probability of interaction. Wildlife managers trying to reduce interactions between cougars and people should incorporate information on spatial ecology and landscape characteristics to identify areas with the highest overlap of human and cougar use to focus management, education, and landscape planning. Resource utilization functions provide a proactive tool to guide these activities for improved coexistence with wildlife using both wildland and residential portions of the landscape.

Space use by female Greater Prairie‐Chickens in response to wind energy development

“…We used utilization distributions to quantify space use as a continuous, probabilistic variable, and then related space use to landscape metrics using multiple regression in an RUF framework (Marzluff et al 2004, Hepinstall et al 2005, Millspaugh et al 2006, Kertson et al 2011. Resource utilization functions have several advantages over other commonly used methods for resource selection analysis.…”

“…RUFs calculate a probabilistic measure of non-uniform space use within an animal's home range, and then use a multiple regression framework to relate space use to resource variables, while accounting for spatial autocorrelation among multiple locations from v www.esajournals.org the same individual. Regression coefficients from the RUF can be used to draw inferences about the direction and magnitude of relationships between intensity of space use and values of selected resources at either an individual or a population level (Marzluff et al 2004, Kertson et al 2011. The objectives of our field study were to use resource utilization functions as an improved tool for testing for potential effects of wind energy development on resource use, and for quantifying the breeding and nonbreeding spatial ecology of female prairie-chickens.…”

Secrets of Success in a Landscape of Fear: Urban Wild Boar Adjust Risk Perception and Tolerate Disturbance

“…In order to identify resource selection of urban wildlife and their ability to perceive and respond to spatial variation in risk, the actually used landscape types within its specific habitat component is the appropriate scale for studying potential behavioral adjustments. For instance, it was demonstrated that urban bobcats and coyotes coped with human-related habitat resources (Tigas et al, 2002), while urban cougars (puma concolor) preferred natural patches (Kertson et al, 2011). Hence, behavioral adjustment in terms of resource selection to exploit and survive in novel habitats seems very likely, but remains poorly understood to date.…”

Novel opportunities for wildlife conservation and research with real‐time monitoring

“…Here we define real time to refer to any data that are immediately telemetered upon acquisition and readied for analysis within a period of five minutes. RTM has enormous potential in the fields of wildlife ecology and conservation, especially for at-risk wildlife, e.g., from poaching (Wittemyer et al 2011), or wildlife prone to frequent interactions with humans (e.g., mountain lion incursion into residential areas; Kertson et al 2011), or for studies requiring immediate data retrieval (e.g., prey/predation interactions; Knopff et al 2009). …”