Den attendance by Arctic foxes experiencing 10 years of increasing tourism

Wildlife tourism is a growing industry, and an increasing number of people seek to observe and interact with wild animals in their natural surroundings. In Iceland, the native Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) is widespread and has been under heavy hunting pressure for centuries. However, in Hornstrandir nature reserve (66° 44'N, 22° 42'W), foxes have been protected from hunting since 1994. These foxes are relatively tame and have become popular amongst tourists who want to observe and take close-up photos of young cubs. Breeding foxes, therefore, face increasing human disturbance within their active den area. In this study, parental visits to fox dens and tourist activities in the area were monitored in 2008 and then annually for a ten-year period (2010-2019). The data demonstrated an increase in tourism near fox dens, and a decrease in the frequency with which fox parents visit the den. The results further suggest that foxes visited the den less often when tourists were present (reducing fr..., , # Den attendance by Arctic foxes experiencing 10 years of increasing tourism

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.ht76hdrt7](10.5061/dryad.ht76hdrt7)

## Description of the data and file structure

There are two CSV files. Both can be loaded into R

foxData <- read.csv(\"den_attendance_by_arctic_foxes_experiencing_increasing_tourism_foxData.csv\",

```
stringsAsFactors=TRUE)
```

foxDataMF <- read.csv(\"den_attendance_by_arctic_foxes_experiencing_increasing_tourism_foxDataMF.csv\",

```
stringsAsFactors=TRUE)
```

* foxData has one row per observation of a fox den for a 4 hour duration (or shorter).

**Variables in foxData**

\- year : numeric, year

\- yearSince2008 : numeric, year rescaled so 2008 becomes year 0

\- denID : character, identifier for den

\- observationDay : numeric, day on which observation took place (1-5 within the observed period)

\- timePeriodOfDay : character, time of day (period1 is 10:00 to 14:00, 2 is 14:00 to 18:00, 3 is 18:00 to 22:00...,