Does zonation and accessibility of wetlands influence human presence and mediate wildlife disturbance?

Patrick-Jean Guay, Wouter F.D. Van Dongen, Emily M. McLeod, Desley A. Whisson, Huy Quan Vu, Hua Wang and Michael A. Weston

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2019, vol. 62, issue 8, 1306-1320

Abstract: Zoning is one approach to managing human occurrence and reducing deleterious interactions between humans and wildlife. We investigated the occurrence of humans, and the responses of eight waterbird species to humans, at a major wetland/treatment plant/birdwatching destination. Human occurrence in three zones (‘open birdwatching’, ‘limited birdwatching’ and ‘restricted access’) was monitored using GPS tracking of visitor vehicles, surveys, geotagged social media uploads and remotely triggered cameras (on primary and secondary roadways). A higher diversity (but not frequency) of vehicle types and more walkers, more social media uploads, and greater usage occurred in zones in which birdwatching was permitted. Vehicles were less common and diverse on secondary roads, suggesting accessibility influenced human occurrence. Bird responsiveness to humans was similar across zones, perhaps because people were ubiquitous or because birds were mobile. Wildlife disturbance studies which use space-experience substitution designs are cautioned to test their assumptions regarding patterns of human visitation.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09640568.2018.1495066 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:62:y:2019:i:8:p:1306-1320

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJEP20

DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2018.1495066

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management is currently edited by Dr Neil Powe, Dr Ken Willis and George Bill Page

More articles in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().