Conservation|The noise of people is more frightening to animals than the sound of an ATV, the study found.
The summary is made by artificial intelligence and checked by a human.
The researchers found that human voices scare forest animals the most.
The study was conducted in a protected forest in Wyoming.
Quakers, ungulates, and black bears were most startled by human sounds.
Wolves and cougars react the least to human sounds
Any not scary like a human. In the opinion of the forest’s four-legged friends, the most creepy of the sounds of outdoor activities are the noises heard from crowds of people.
The sounds of, for example, walking, jogging, mountain biking or quad biking are less disturbing.
Researchers discovered it in Wyoming, USA, when they placed motion-responsive game cameras on animal trails, which triggered a speaker twenty meters away.
Various sounds of people’s outdoor activities and natural sounds were played from the speakers.
So the most startling sounds came from people’s mouths, and the more people there were, the worse.
Other signs of human activity also made forest mammals more alert and flee than natural sounds. The effect continued for a long time. Paths that had been played by human sounds remained more deserted than usual a week later.
Researchers observed the reactions of nine different species of ungulates and carnivores in about a thousand speaker encounters.
Some species were startled more than others. The worst turned out to be quacks and other ungulates, as well as black bears. Wolves and cougars were the least frightened.
The study was conducted in a protected state forest, the Bridger-Teton National Forest, which is part of the same large natural preservation area as Yellowstone National Park.
It is good to be aware that even a small human voice seems to limit the life of animals in such a thriving environment, think the US and Japanese researchers In Current Biology.
Published in Science in Nature 7/2024