New publication: trail guidelines to minimize disturbance to and conflict with large carnivores
As populations increase and recreation becomes more popular and accessible, wildlife disturbance increases and human-wildlife interactions become more prevalent. Mindful recreation development is ever more important.
The Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, with the support of McElhanney and Bear Safety and More, has created trail development guidelines to help recreation groups and land managers to minimize disturbance to and conflict with large carnivores.
Get your copy of the guide here.
Trails are the connection between humanity and the natural world. These ribbons of recreation take humans from their everyday life into forests and natural areas for various experiences. Whether purposefully designed or beaten in by use, trails place humans in the homes of wild animals.
Outdoor recreation provides many benefits for human health, the economy, and tourism. There is increasing research and concern about how humans impact wild spaces and the animals that live there, even with activities such as walking or hiking.
Over the past 20+ years, extensive research has been undertaken to understand the impacts of humans on wildlife movement and behaviours. Not to mention, every time a human is hurt or killed by a wild animal, the focus intensifies, and questions are raised on how to minimize and avoid these unfortunate events. The idea for these guidelines came from the volume of research available and currently underway on the impacts of recreation on wildlife. This is a fairly wide-ranging area of study and the distillation of this research into a concise and usable format by trail developers is largely missing. These guidelines are intended to provide some suggestions and best practices for trail developers to plan, develop and manage trail systems in such a way that potential disturbance and resulting conflicts with large carnivores are minimized, enhancing trail user safety.
The guide is divided into sections on planning, design and operations.
