Hunting, but not outdoor recreation, modulates behavioural tolerance to human disturbance in Alpine marmots Marmota marmota

Humans are often perceived as predators by free-living animals, and thus,
even non-consumptive human activities such as outdoor recreation may
trigger behavioural and physiological responses, often with negative
consequences on individual fitness and population persistence.
Nonetheless, there is growing evidence that wildlife can also have
remarkable behavioural tolerance, but no clear picture has yet emerged
regarding the mechanisms explaining different responses to humans. We
investigated the effect of different types of human activity – hunting and
outdoor recreation – on behavioural tolerance to humans in Alpine marmots
Marmota marmota. Marmots were studied in areas with contrasting protection
regimes and under different levels of outdoor recreation in Northern Italy
over three seasons (2021-2023). Flight initiation distance (i.e. the
distance at which an animal escapes from an approaching person) was used
as a proxy of tolerance to human disturbance and tested against levels of
outdoor recreation and hunting using linear mixed modelling. Marmots were
more sensitive to human disturbance in hunted as compared to protected
areas, whereas we did not find evidence for changes in behavioural
tolerance when exposed to varying levels of outdoor recreation. In turn,
our study suggests that hunting, by reducing behavioural tolerance to
humans, could exacerbate the negative effects of non-lethal human
activities on wildlife. This has implications for conservation and
management strategies aimed at promoting coexistence in human-altered
landscapes.