How species in the wild are managing the risks and rewards of sharing space with humans

NOVEMBER 25, 2019 

by Elizabeth Allen, University of Lincoln

Endangered monkeys living in the wild are intelligently adapting their lifestyle to fit with their human neighbors, learning to avoid manmade risks and exploiting increased contact with people, new research has revealed. 

The study, which looks specifically at the behavior of an endangered monkey species, reveals that even in national parks where human presence is reduced and regulated, the animals carry out careful calculations and modify their natural behavior to balance the pros and cons of living in close proximity to humans. 

It reveals the negative impact that consuming human foods can have on the physical health of the monkeys, and highlights the need for new and sustainable conservation programs to save the growing number of endangered species in their natural habitats. 

Barbary macaques are an endangered species of monkeys restricted to the forests of Morocco and Algeria, with an introduced population also living on the Rock of Gibraltar. The wild population in North Africa has dramatically declined in the last decades. 

The new study, led by Dr. Bonaventura Majolo from the University of Lincoln, UK, involved a detailed examination of the effects of human activity on wild Barbary macaques in Ifrane National Park in Morocco. 

Dr. Majolo said: "When we observe animals in the wild we often talk about a 'landscape of fear.' This term refers to the decisions that animals make when they choose whether or not to avoid an area where the risk of predation is highest; weighing up the risk of attack against the possible rewards to be found there. 

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Urban foxes and coyotes learn to set aside their differences and coexist

January 30, 2018, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Diverging from centuries of established behavioral norms, red fox and coyote have gone against their wild instincts and learned to coexist in the urban environment of Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, according to a recently published study in the journal PLOS One.

Lead author Marcus Mueller, a former graduate student in forest and wildlife ecology, and David Drake, his advisor and a professor in the department, found that over a two-year period, red foxes and coyotes they had radio-tagged were coming into close contact with one another. Some even established home ranges that overlapped.

The findings have implications for wildlife managers working to promote co-existence of species and mitigate conflicts between animals and people in urban settings.

"It gives us a better understanding of the types of habitats foxes and coyotes prefer to use in developed and residential areas," says Mueller, who now owns a wildlife management company in Milwaukee. "This in turn can help us reduce the kinds of problems that can arise when wild animals and people come into contact."

It also shows that these relatives of dogs have been able to carve out a successful niche for themselves in our own yards, parks and alleys, and are finding ways to coexist with each other to take advantage of this new resource-rich real estate.

"We found an instance where a coyote routinely visited a fox den over about a two or three week period," Drake said. "But the fox and kits did not abandon the den, suggesting to us that they didn't feel predation pressure from the coyote."

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Exploring ways to 'coexist with wildlife'

Date: July 7, 2016

Source: Norwegian Institute for Nature Research

Although protected areas such as national parks can play a crucial role in conserving wildlife, most species of large carnivores and large herbivores also depend on being able to occupy human-dominated landscapes. This sharing of space is often associated with conflicts between humans and wildlife, and between different groups of humans with divergent interests. In order to achieve a situation that can be described as "coexistence" there is a need to develop a more nuanced and realistic understanding of what this state looks like.

A paper written by Neil Carter, assistant professor in the Human-Environment Systems Research Center in the College of Innovation and Design at Boise State, and John Linnell, a senior research scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, was recently published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Titled "Co-adaptation is key to coexisting with large carnivores," the paper looks at ways to improve the ability of humans and carnivores to co-exist, which is crucial to carnivore conservation efforts around the world.

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