Research overview: recreation and trail effects on puma habitat use

Outdoor recreation brings people deep into wildlife habitat, and this overview examines how hiking, biking, and trail use affect puma movement and space use. Telemetry studies show that pumas often avoid areas and times of high human recreational activity, shifting their movements away from popular trails and toward nocturnal hours, even when the people pose no direct threat. The overview discusses how this avoidance can effectively shrink the usable habitat around recreation areas, displace cats from preferred terrain, and impose energetic costs, paralleling the fear-of-humans findings. It also considers implications for managing protected areas that must balance public access with wildlife needs. Recognizing that non-consumptive recreation, not only hunting or development, shapes carnivore movement is important for siting trails and timing access to minimize disturbance to pumas and other sensitive felids.