Grizzly bear response to spatio-temporal variability in human recreational activity.

1. Outdoor recreation on trail networks is a growing form of disturbance for wildlife. However, few studies have examined behavioural responses by large carnivores to motorised and non-motorised recreational activity-- a knowledge gap that has implications for the success of human access management aimed at improving habitat quality for wildlife.
2. We used an integrated step-selection analysis of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) radiotelemetry data and a spatio-temporal model of motorised and non-motorised human recreational activity to examine the effect of human recreational activity along trails on both habitat selection and movement behaviour of individual bears. Grizzly bears were captured and radiocollared in the west-central Alberta Rocky Mountains and Foothills, and trail cameras were deployed on trails to obtain data on human recreational activity.
3. We found that models including data on recreational activity outperformed trail-proximity models when interactions with movement c...