No abstract

ABSTRACT. Landscape characteristics affect human-wildlife interactions. However, there is a need to better understand mechanisms that drive those interactions, particularly feedbacks that exist between wildlife-related impacts, human reaction to and behavior as a result of those impacts, and how land use and landscape characteristics may influence those components within coupled human and natural systems. Current conceptual models of human-wildlife interactions often focus on species population size as the independent variable driving those interactions. Such an approach potentially overlooks important feedbacks among and drivers of human-wildlife interactions that result from mere wildlife presence versus absence. We describe an emerging conceptual framework that focuses on wildlife as a driver of human behavior and allows us to better understand linkages between humans, wildlife, and the broader landscape. We also present results of a pilot analysis related to our own ongoing study of urban rodent control behavior to illustrate one application of this framework within a study of urban landscapes.

Glaciers have significant influence on hydrology, vegetation, and wildlife in mountainous regions, and are receding globally. To quantify the impacts of sustained glacier loss, we mapped a complete set of glacier areas from the Little Ice Age (LIA) using very high-resolution satellite imagery (30 cm) within Glacier National Park (GNP), Montana, a region that encompasses 4098.81 km 2 in the northwestern United States. We measured glacier change across the park using LIA glacier area as a baseline and then estimated change in glacier area and volume over time. An estimated 146 glaciers existed within the current boundaries of GNP during the LIA. By 2005, only fifty-one (35 percent) persisted. Nearly 90 percent of LIA glaciers had lost more than 50 percent of their area by 2005. This decrease in glacier area equates to an estimated ice volume loss of 1.52 km 3 , or 1.37 km 3 of water storage, roughly equivalent to 90 percent of Lake McDonald, the largest lake in the park. Understanding rates of deglaciation and implications for water storage and use can assist local resource managers and downstream communities in planning for change.