Human impacts on wildlife

[Christine Hass]

The New York times just released an article about the impacts even quiet wilderness goers can have on wildlife:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/opinion/sunday/leaving-only-foots...

Most of us are unaware how much impact we are having, especially when are trying to be quiet and low impact.  But it turns out, quiet hikers may disturb wildlife more than noisy snowmobiles or other machines.   Many of these animals stop what they were doing and freeze, or slink off to a hiding place (many years of radio tracking wild mammals has taught me this), so we don't see them running away.

I've also noticed this when soundscape recording.  If I leave my mics and move on down the trail, it takes about 20 minutes for the birds to start singing again.  This is important not only for recreational management, but also for acoustic monitoring.  We need to include our presence as one of the variables that affects animal presence and behavior.