Abstract
Human activities have significantly altered natural habitats, changing the behavior of many animals. As human encroachment on natural habitats increases, animals must adapt their behavior to couple with these rapid environmental changes. The landscape of fear (LOF) refers to prey perception of risk, which leads to behavioral adaptations throughout an animal’s lifetime. Animals might choose habitats with lower potential energy intake and lower perceived risk over those with higher potential energy intake and higher perceived risk, thus trading off food quality for safety. Here, we investigate whether two endangered mammal species increase the frequency with which they use their travel routes as a navigation strategy to avoid human-influenced areas and traumatic-risk events. Thus, creating a habitual route system to avoid these events and human activities. Using GIS, primary movement data, and remote sensing, we demonstrated that two endangered species increase their use of habitual routes in landscapes where hunting by humans is present. This means using their LOF potentially to focus on signs of risky locations, and human activities, including hunting. These analytical approaches raise questions about whether some species opt for less demanding navigation strategies to balance their focus between navigation and monitoring for signals of risk.
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Acknowledgements
We sincerely thank the editor, Bettina Wachter, for her time and helpful guidance during the review process. We thank Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management for permission to conduct this study and work in the parks (permits to FO (39/2017), WRL (40/2017), MM (41/2017), AP (42/2017), RFH (43/2017), and the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust, and Roger Parry for his work and expertise with the elephants, and his management of the field operation. We thank Kristen Bigelow for comments. Zimbabwe government for permitting us to conduct research in Zimbabwe. We thank the funders Connected Conservation Trust, the Elephant Crisis Fund, and Save the Elephants. We thank FAPESP to PS (10/51252‐1) and additional financial support to PI (10/51455‐0).
Funding
Connected Conservation Trust (FO, MK) The Elephant Crisis Fund (ZW_CC_01) (MK, FO, WL, AP, MM) NSF Promise (AP). FAPESP (PI, PS).
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Ethical statement
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management (ZimParks), under the Zimbabwe Government and the Victoria Falls Trust, was responsible for collaring the elephants (capture and collar deployment Appendix S1). This study used geographic coordinate data obtained from the collars. The supplemental information includes details on the protocols followed by Zimbabwean authorities to deploy the collars. Permits to carry out research in parks were granted under the state permit number 23(1)(C)(II)18/2018 and ZimParks permit number 358–362/2017.
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The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available in the Dataverse project repository https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WMOBBN. The raw data are available upon reasonable request.
Inclusion and diversity
This manuscript involves science and scientists from two underrepresented countries in two continents, Brazil (South America) and Zimbabwe (Africa). The leading authors, Andrea Presotto and Patrícia Izar, are two women in science natives of Brazil who conduct research there. Zimbabwe is represented by one author, Malvern Karidozo. Malvern Karidozo is an important local leader in elephant conservation in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. He worked with ZimParks on collaring elephants and facilitated the connection between the researchers and local authorities for permits.
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Presotto, A., Karidozo, M., Suscke, P. et al. Hunting by humans affects the navigation of two endangered mammals in Zimbabwe and Brazil.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-56803-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-56803-z
Keywords
- Animal navigation
- Elephant cognition
- Primate cognition
- Human pressure on mammals
- Endangered species
Source: Ecology - nature.com
