Data from: The ecological footprint of recreation: Impacts on mountain goat habitat selection

Understanding the relationship between wildlife and their environment is
important to wildlife management. Factors such as human disturbance that
influence the behavior of animals have implications for management
decisions and are critical to consider in evaluations of wildlife habitat
selection. In Montana, there is concern regarding the status of mountain
goats (Oreamnos americanus), and more information regarding mountain goat
ecology is needed to guide management decisions. We used GPS locations
from 14 mountain goats in the Bridger Range of southwest Montana collected
from 2021-2024 to evaluate summer habitat selection and the effects of
trail-based recreation. Recreation covariates representing the intensity
of recreational use were developed based on trail-use counts obtained from
trail counters and categorized into four categories (no-, low-, medium-,
and high-recreation). First, we developed a summer habitat selection model
that identified habitat selection within the Bridger Mountains. Next, we
added recreation covariates to the most-supported model to evaluate the
effects of trail-based recreation on mountain goat habitat selection.
Finally, interactions with time of day for all covariates and day of week
with recreation associated covariates were added to assess evidence for
temporal (diel and weekly) variation in habitat selection. We found that
mountain goats strongly selected steep and rugged terrain with low canopy
cover during the summer. At the population level we found a lower relative
probability of selection for areas of medium recreation intensity compared
to areas of no or low recreation intensity. The relative probability of
selection for high recreation intensity was similar to those of other
recreation intensities, which did not provide strong evidence of
avoidance, suggesting potential tolerance among some individuals. We found
evidence for temporal variation in mountain goat selection of most
covariates. Our results provided evidence of substantial individual
variation in responses to recreation intensity. This information should
help guide future management decisions related to timber management and
suggest a cautious approach to the future development of recreation
infrastructure given the varied responses of mountain goats to
recreation and the potential for increased human-mountain goat conflict
created by tolerance of human disturbance in high-quality
mountain goat habitat by some individuals.