Context: The risk-disturbance hypothesis predicts that animals exhibit risk-avoidance behaviours when exposed to human disturbance because they perceive the disturbance as a predatory threat.
Aims: This study aimed to examine whether Tibetan antelopes (Pantholops hodgsoni) exhibit risk-avoidance behaviour with proximity to a major highway and with increasing traffic flow consistent with the risk-disturbance hypothesis.
Methods: Focal-animal sampling was used to observe the behaviour of Tibetan antelopes. The behaviours were categorised as foraging, vigilance, resting, moving, or other. The time, frequency, and duration of foraging and vigilance were calculated.
Key results: As distance from the road increased, time spent foraging and foraging duration increased while foraging frequency, time spent being vigilant and vigilance frequency decreased, indicating that there is a risk perception associated with roads. Tibetan antelopes presented more risk-avoidance behaviours during high-traffic periods compared with low-traffic periods.
Conclusions: Tibetan antelopes exhibited risk-avoidance behaviour towards roads that varied with proximity and traffic levels, which is consistent with the risk-disturbance hypothesis.
Implications: The consequences of risk-avoidance behaviour should be reflected in wildlife management by considering human disturbance and road design.
Fig. 1. Map of the study area.
The study was conducted between No. 2970 milestone
and Wudaoliang along the Qinghai–Tibet Highway (QTH)
and in areas with no railways to decrease the possible effects of railways and trains.
Additional Information:
1 Author Information:Xinming Lian, Tongzuo Zhang, Yifan Cao, Jianping Su and Simon Thirgood.
Correspondence: lianxinming@gmail.com; jpsu@nwipb.ac.cn.
2 Published : 20 April 2011，Wildlife Research 38(2) 141-146.