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Some people think the trails around Jackson Hole—bordering wilderness areas and wildlife refuges—act like a wildlife “sacrifice zone,” a place where frequent recreation drives animals away. But a yearslong study led by Courtney Larson, a conservation scientist with The Nature Conservancy, found that wildlife continues to use the area, with researchers describing results as “encouraging” despite high human recreation.
The study team placed 27 remote cameras along nonmotorized trails in a 36-square-mile area south and east of Jackson to document how wildlife and people use the same habitat. The area includes wilderness land and a wildlife refuge, and recreators regularly encounter wildlife such as moose, wolves, mountain lions, and grizzly bears, according to the reporting. Larson said the research began because “People think of that area as like a sacrifice zone,” and researchers wanted “to test that.”
The investigation, dubbed “Neighbors to Nature: Cache Creek Study,” began about six years ago and involved collaborators including The Nature Conservancy, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation, Friends of Pathways, and Teton Raptor Center. The researchers’ study area lies in Bridger-Teton National Forest extending out from Snow King Mountain, reaching from Josie’s Ridge down the Cache Creek drainage to Game Creek, and bounded on the west by U.S. Highway 89. The team’s camera-based analysis covered a 2.5-year “snapshot in time” during a period when the trails were already heavily used.
Researchers analyzed 1.9 million images, including roughly 310,000 photos of humans, 54,000 detections of domestic dogs, and 8,300 photos of wild mammals. In discussing the overall outcome, Larson said, “Overall, we didn’t find a lot of significant avoidance,” and that “We really do have all these different wildlife species using the area, despite really high recreation.”
In published results released this spring, the team said elk appeared most sensitive to disruptions from human presence. According to the study findings described in the reporting, when human use was high, elk became more active in the mornings and evenings and also avoided areas with lots of recreation. Moose, by contrast, did not avoid habitat altogether but adjusted the times they used highly trafficked areas.
For several other species, the researchers reported that recreation did not significantly change how they used the habitat, including mule deer, black bear, coyote, skunk, and mountain lion. The team also reported that the type of human activity mattered: the analysis of the remote-camera images showed that foot traffic—such as hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing—produced more negative wildlife responses than cycling or the presence of domestic dogs.
Larson said some results were “mixed” and “kind of confusing,” noting that “there are greater numbers of hikers.” She also said the researchers “aren’t able to look at distance,” explaining that the average person hiking likely goes only a couple miles, while the average person on a mountain bike ride typically goes farther.
In the context of land management, the study’s publication comes as Bridger-Teton National Forest revises its forest plan, with recreation expected to be a central issue. The current planning effort is in early stages and will update a forest plan that is 36 years old, according to the reporting. Linda Merigliano, a retired Bridger-Teton recreation specialist and a collaborator on the study, said she hoped the new data would help shape the next plan, describing the work as a baseline.
Merigliano said the Cache Creek area “is not a sacrifice zone,” pointing to the landscape’s setting near the Gros Ventre Wilderness and the National Elk Refuge and describing resilience influenced by bordering protected habitat. She said coexistence requires active management, including season closures and trail management focused on keeping recreation largely on designated routes.