UC Santa Cruz

Widespread habitat loss and overharvest have been identified as major drivers of population declines and range contractions for terrestrial mammalian species. Protected areas, like national parks, are increasingly important as refuges for rare and exploited species, as well as critical natural laboratories that serve as baseline examples of ecological processes largely free from human intervention. Yellowstone National Park (YNP) sits at the center of a 22-million-acre mosaic of federal, state, and privately managed land in northwest Wyoming known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The region boasts one of the last nearly intact temperate-zone ecosystems on Earth, providing vital habitat for seven species of native ungulate and seven large predators. We sought to answer fundamental wildlife conservation and management questions pertaining to large predator distributions and behavior. We snow-tracked cougars (Puma concolor) for four consecutive winters to gather noninvasive genetic samples. We applied Bayesian spatial capture-recapture models to estimate abundance, density, apparent survival and recruitment for this cryptic, low-density species. In addition to these noninvasive studies, we captured and GPS-collared cougars and wolves (Canis lupus), a subset of which contained tri-axial accelerometers to monitor instantaneous movement signatures. Using GPS locations from these animals we searched and identified predation events, allowing us to directly link known predatory behavior to accelerometer readings. We compared patterns in seasonal predatory behavior for these sympatric species that utilize divergent social strategies. Finally, we examined nearly twenty years of wolf GPS locations to understand the impact of growing visitation (>4 million human visitors/year) on habitat selection patterns. We identified behavioral shifts away from the road during peak visitation but found increased tolerance by wolf packs exposed to more human visitation. Findings from our work give managers information to effectively monitor population trends for cryptic species, remotely gain insights on fine scale behavioral patterns and circumvent visitor use management issues that may be modifying wildlife behavior.