Data from: Study "Bobcat spatial ecology study in the Olympic Peninsula, Washington"

Forests are critical for sustaining biodiversity and provide vital ecosystem services globally, including renewable timber sources, nutrient flow, climate regulation, water supply and purification, and carbon sequestration. Human-caused forest loss, fragmentation, and degradation have resulted in biodiversity declines globally; unsustainable timber-logging is one of the largest drivers of forest loss and degradation. Harvest-driven shifts in forest structure and composition have considerable implications for wildlife species, with logging activities appearing beneficial for some wildlife species and detrimental to others. Our objective was to determine the effects of logging activities on fine-scale carnivore movement and habitat selection. We generated step selection functions from 1-hour interval spatial data from nine GPS-collared bobcats. Specifically, we examined how different post-harvest forest stands and canopy cover influenced bobcat habitat selection while controlling for other landscape features such as slope and distance to paved roads, logging roads, and streams in the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington, USA. We also tested the percent at which bobcat selection for canopy cover saturates. We found that bobcats avoided the young forest stands less than 5 years of age and older and mature forest stands exceeding 40 years of age. Bobcats selected for the forest age class spanning 6–15 years and gentler slopes. We also found that bobcat selection for canopy cover peaked at 66 % canopy cover. Our findings highlight the importance of evaluating different forms of human modification on species' habitat selection to inform how human resource extraction impacts species.