increased human exploitation

How Roads Impact Wildlife – Increased Human Exploitation & Recreation

rocarroll Wildlife June 9, 2020June 19, 2020disturbances, exploiting, impacts from roads, impacts to wildlife, increased human exploitation, increased human recreation, recreating, responses, road ecology, roads, solutions for wildlife 0 Comment

The human footprint on the world is expanding more and more everyday, and people and wildlife are coming in greater contact with one another; this means that the areas humans use for activity or recreation could be simultaneously associated with the risks towards animals. Human recreation is one of the biggest exploitations to wildlife, including facets concerning public access on roads, motorized summer trails and winter trials, cross country ATV and snowmobile use trails, and/or water access trails.

Human Exploitation & Recreation on Wildlife

Wildlife experience many impacts from humans and roads in general, however, the impacts wildlife endure from human activities and disturbances can include the following: physically altering a habitat, removing vegetation or replacing native species with disturbance-tolerant non-native species, and increased noise, sight, or sound from people. Human recreation impacts wildlife through the exploitation, modification, disturbance, and pollution it imposes on the environment.

Any disturbances caused by human recreation or other activities by humans could cause wildlife species to elicit behavioral and physiological responses. These responses are usually influenced by the disturbance itself (i.e., activity type, distance away from the species, direction or movement , speed, frequency, predictability, and magnitude) and/or the location in relation to the animal itself. The type of behavioral response wildlife elicit is in the form of avoidance, habituation, or attraction; more times than not, wildlife will avoid areas where humans recreate or exploit. Examples of specific recreational activities that impact wildlife include:

Hunting – can alter the sex and age composition, distribution, reproduction, and behavior of wildlife
Viewing – can disturb wildlife through things such as close encounters, and cause changes in the animal’s energy expenditure, alter their nest or burrow site, and decrease the ability of their young to survive (i.e., animal’s will sometimes abandon their young when human’s are near because they are deemed as predators)
Backpacking/Hiking, etc. – can cause increased flight risk, stress, and/or displacement of wildlife
Boating – can alter the habitat quality or foraging quality for waterfowl species, and can also impact the quality of the water wildlife are exposed to
RMV’s – can cause wildlife to redistribute from disturbances such as flight or stress

How Human Recreation & Exploitation Stems from Roads

The impacts described above on how wildlife endure effects from human recreation and exploitation are accessible from one of two places: roads or trails. Public access roads disrupt the wildlife’s habitat continuity to one extent or another, usually dividing a big area of habitat into smaller patches. These types of roads can also inhibit movement for animals migrating, enhance linear openings of roads that are detrimental to wildlife, and cause habitat or forest fragmentation.

Motorized summer or winter trails for ATV’s, snowmobiles, RMV’s, or even water access trails, have negative effects to wildlife, including the following: physically altering the habitat area, removing vegetation, replacing native vegetation with non-native vegetation, increased noise disturbances, reduced habitat security, and sometimes resulting in direct injury and/or mortality to the wildlife. All of these impacts to wildlife species result from any form of human recreation and/or exploitation; yet, how can we as humans make the environment a better place for wildlife to live and thrive in?

Solutions to Human Recreation & Exploitation

A current solution being used to stop the human recreation and exploitation along motorized recreational trails is to identify the standard of the forest (i.e., low standard meaning there is little to no quality left; high standard meaning there is much quality) and deciding if the trail should remain opened or closed. This is dependent on local and national level ownerships of land, and whether or not the wildlife in the area being considered will benefit from the trail closing or not be affected whether it’s open or not.

Other solutions to the issue of human recreation and exploitation from roads and trails would be to have maintenance and public information available to people who utilize human recreation areas, roads, and trails; this would help improve the public’s knowledge of where it is okay and not okay to recreate. From these solutions, road related impacts to wildlife could considerably decrease due to more people taking the necessary precautions to protect an area of land and the wildlife within it.

An example of how to humanly recreate within an environmental area that wildlife are home to could be to follow the indicated trails when going on a hike instead of detouring away from the trail. Another example could be to take the time to research the area you’re going to be recreating in and understanding the precautions needed to ensure wildlife are not harmed and/or disturbed. Recreation should be utilized, to hike, explore, and be apart of different areas of nature, but should be done so in a safe and cautionary way to protect and not exploit upon the wildlife within our environment.

How Roads Impact Wildlife – Indirect Effects to Our Wildlife Species

rocarroll Wildlife June 9, 2020June 24, 2020chain reaction, degradation, disturbances, habitat loss, impacts from roads, impacts to wildlife, increased human exploitation, indirect effects, major transportation infrastructures, road avoidance, road ecology, roads, solutions, solutions for wildlife 0 Comment

Roads impact wildlife in a variety of ways, as seen through my many blog posts concerning this topic and issue. However, the one major thing I have not yet discussed about how roads impact wildlife is exactly what happens to our wildlife in terms of their diversity and size. Roads can cause a chain effect of reactions to occur in the environment, including diminishing species one by one, gradually decreasing the size of their population.

Wildlife are Gradually Disappearing

Major transportation infrastructures (i.e., roads, railways, and canals) are impacting our wildlife across an array of linear landscapes, making wildlife become disproportionate to the area of habitat they occupy. As we know, roads impose an array of impacts to wildlife, including wildlife mortality, wildlife-vehicle collisions, and limited movement from habitat to habitat. However, what is of major concern is the indirect effects roads cause to our wildlife populations, such as reduced access to habitat due to road avoidance or human exploitation. The indirect effects are the ones of major concern, especially those occurring from bigger transportation infrastructures such as highways. Highways present more serious and harmful threats to wildlife and impact a much larger range of wildlife species, presenting impassable barriers for species to move around their environment. The major concerns of highways, and transportation infrastructures in general, and their indirect effects include, but are not limited to, direct loss of habitat, degradation of habitat quality, road avoidance, and human exploitation.

The Indirect Effects

Direct loss of habitat is one of the indirect effects wildlife experience from our roads and highways. Construction of major transportation infrastructures changes the value of the habitat within the landscape. Areas that used to flourish in the environment that are now covered by pavement, rails, or travel lanes with dirt and/or gravel are now vastly diminished to be used by wildlife as habitat. Transportation infrastructures also cause the quality of a habitat to degrade, causing things such as storm water discharge, alterations in stream hydrology, air emissions, and invasive plant species to occur; this can degrade a habitat not just where the transportation infrastructure is placed, but several hundred meters or even miles away from the road itself.

Due to roads running through wildlife habitat or landscapes wildlife use, wildlife become accustomed to avoid roads. Some species of wildlife will avoid areas adjacent or close to highways or roads due to the amount of noise and/or human activity associated with roads in general. Avoiding areas near roads can cause wildlife to be restricted in their ability to move around in their environment, limit the resources they can access, and limit the amount of food they are able to forage for. Roads are also associated with human activity to wildlife, which means increased human exploitation in these areas; roads increase the access for humans to hunt or poach in the environment. This effect can potentially cause wildlife populations near roadway areas to be vastly reduced, leading to wildlife becoming more road avoidant in the future. How can these indirect effects to wildlife from roads be resolved, even just a little, to help our species of the earth?

The Solution to the Indirect Effects

Based off an article I found about this issue imposed onto our wildlife, there are already progressions being made with resolutions to the issue of indirect effects from road systems. One solution is to foster a greater appreciation for the issues caused by highways and railways; this is a challenge currently because it emphasizes the understanding people need to have for the scope and complexity transportation infrastructures pose on wildlife. The issue is sometimes too often viewed as incidental to the animal rather than a threat to wildlife populations. Wildlife must be able to move throughout their landscapes as it is one of the most important ecological processes that needs to be maintained for ecosystems to stay intact over time. Being able to foster an appreciation for this issue is important, as it could lead to appropriate planning and mitigation when roads are being constructed to prevent long-term degradation of wildlife populations and their habitats.

Another solution to this issue to be able to analyze the landscape’s connectivity zones; what this means is when a road is being planned for construction, comprehensive efforts must be taken to acknowledge and leave be the areas in the landscape that are deemed important travel corridors or connections for wildlife between significant habitat areas. If these steps are taken, planning for new transportation infrastructures can be more effectively and efficiently focused on how to minimize and mitigate the impacts to critical areas wildlife use. Though these solutions are still in the making, the causes of indirect effects from roads onto wildlife is an important topic that needs to be explored so we still have the wildlife we love and see all over the world.