Author(s)

Muhammad Zaman^1*, Bushra Allah Rakha^2*, Kwasi Wrensford^3*, Mengyan Zhu^1*, Longcheng Fan^1*, Guangshun Jiang^1#

¹Feline Research Center of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, College of Wildlife and Protected Area, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China.
²Department of Wildlife Management, PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
³Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Optimal escape theory predicts that animals would balance the costs and benefits of flight. One cost of not fleeing is the ongoing cost of vigilance for upcoming environmental threats. Our results show that FID increases for vigilant hares with predator starting distance, due to the costs acquired by continuing to scan for ecological dangers. The presence of conspecifics within proximity distance for social hare was reduced FID due to collective vigilance, while a solitary animal had greater FID, due to less cooperative defense for predator detection. In both seasons, detection and flight initiation distance of the focal hare increased in open habitat due to a higher probability of detection for upcoming danger, while dense cover provided concealment but reduced the probability of detecting an incoming threat, reducing FID. Moreover, proximity to roads and the nearest refuge significantly influenced anti-predator risk by compensation energy to cope with approaching stimuli. In a landscape with heavy human hunting in retaliation to plantations damage has modified the natural behavior of the hare in the Shigar valley. The findings are discussed in the context of hare FID by humans and the suggestions for management and mitigation of human-wildlife conflict are also considered.

Alert Distance, Distance to Refuge, Flight Initiation Distance (FID), Group Size Effect, Starting Distance, Social or Solitary Hare

Zaman, M. , Rakha, B. , Wrensford, K. , Zhu, M. , Fan, L. and Jiang, G. (2020) Occurrence of Conspecific in the Neighboring Space Influence on Flight Initiation Distance in Cape Hare Lepus capensis under Human Stimuli. Open Journal of Ecology, 10, 380-395. doi: 10.4236/oje.2020.106024.