Habitat selection and outdoor recreation explain human-carnivore conflict

Human-wildlife conflict occurs anywhere humans and wildlife overlap with significant socio-ecological consequences. As participation in outdoor recreation grows, so too does the potential for conflict between people and wildlife. This work investigates how outdoor recreation affects the movement behavior of a large carnivore and demonstrates the potential for human activity to lead to habituation in mountain lions (Puma concolor). Despite evidence of habituation, we found that human-tolerant individuals are not more likely to engage in conflict. Instead, mountain lion attacks on people, and other conflict events, are best explained by an overlap in high-quality mountain lion habitat and concentrated human presence. This work offers a mechanistic understanding of human-wildlife conflict and demonstrates behavioral pathways that contribute to human-wildlife coexistence., , # Data from: Habitat selection and outdoor recreation explain human-carnivore conflict

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.q573n5tv4](10.5061/dryad.q573n5tv4)

## Description of the data and file structure

The dataset provided can be used to reproduce results associated with the manuscript titled \"Habitat selection and outdoor recreation explain human-carnivore conflict\" by Morgan et al. 2025 (in review).

These data consist of .csv files originally analyzed using R (version 3.6.0). All GPS movement data were collected by the Santa Cruz Puma Project within California's Santa Cruz Mountains, USA, between 2018 and 2023. GPS data have been stripped of location information due to the sensitive nature of mountain lion space use within the study area. Human outdoor recreation data were derived from Strava Metro data collected from 2018–2023. Recreation data represent on-trail recreation intensity at multiple unique spatial and temporal scales around each used and available GPS location. Further det...,