DOI: 10.5061/dryad.bt3ng2j
title: Data from: Human–Cougar interactions in the wildland–urban interface of Colorado's front range

description: As human populations continue to expand across the world, the need to
 understand and manage wildlife populations within the wildland–urban
 interface is becoming commonplace. This is especially true for large
 carnivores as these species are not always tolerated by the public and can
 pose a risk to human safety. Unfortunately, information on wildlife
 species within the wildland–urban interface is sparse, and knowledge from
 wildland ecosystems does not always translate well to human‐dominated
 systems. Across western North America, cougars (Puma concolor) are
 routinely utilizing wildland–urban habitats while human use of these areas
 for homes and recreation is increasing. From 2007 to 2015, we studied
 cougar resource selection, human–cougar interaction, and cougar conflict
 management within the wildland–urban landscape of the northern Front Range
 in Colorado, USA. Resource selection of cougars within this landscape was
 typical of cougars in more remote settings but cougar interactions with
 humans tended to occur in locations cougars typically selected against,
 especially those in proximity to human structures. Within higher housing
 density areas, 83% of cougar use occurred at night, suggesting cougars
 generally avoided human activity by partitioning time. Only 24% of
 monitored cougars were reported for some type of conflict behavior but 39%
 of cougars sampled during feeding site investigations of GPS collar data
 were found to consume domestic prey items. Aversive conditioning was
 difficult to implement and generally ineffective for altering cougar
 behaviors but was thought to potentially have long‐term benefits of
 reinforcing fear of humans in cougars within human‐dominated areas
 experiencing little cougar hunting pressure. Cougars are able to exploit
 wildland–urban landscapes effectively, and conflict is relatively uncommon
 compared with the proportion of cougar use. Individual characteristics and
 behaviors of cougars within these areas are highly varied; therefore,
 conflict management is unique to each situation and should target
 individual behaviors. The ability of individual cougars to learn to
 exploit these environments with minimal human–cougar interactions suggests
 that maintaining older age structures, especially females, and providing a
 matrix of habitats, including large connected open‐space areas, would be
 beneficial to cougars and effectively reduce the potential for conflict.
description: UsedPointsThis file contains the data for the resource selection function (RSF) to determine cougar use from GPS locations. This processed version has all geographic coordinate information removed as many of these locations are on private property and cannot be given out in raw form. Variables included are Canopy, Distance.to.Canopy, Heat.Loading, Elevation, Housing.Density, Topographic.Wetness, Distance.to.Road, Distance.to.Structure and Density.Class.SightPointsThis file contains the data for the reported cougar sightings used in the selection function (RSF) to determine if cougar sighting locations differed from cougar use. This processed version has all geographic coordinate information removed as many of these locations are on private property and cannot be given out in raw form. Variables included are Canopy, Distance.to.Canopy, Heat.Loading, Elevation, Housing.Density, Topographic.Wetness, Distance.to.Road, Distance.to.Structure and Density.Class.ConflictPointsThis file contains the data for the reported cougar conflict used in the selection function (RSF) to determine if cougar conflict locations differed from cougar use. This processed version has all geographic coordinate information removed as many of these locations are on private property and cannot be given out in raw form. Variables included are Canopy, Distance.to.Canopy, Heat.Loading, Elevation, Housing.Density, Topographic.Wetness, Distance.to.Road, Distance.to.Structure and Density.Class.Cluster InvestigationsThis is the input file used any components of the paper using GPS collared cougar kill-site information ("Sampled Collared Cougar Case Histories and Domestic Prey"). This processed version has all geographic coordinate information removed to protect the precise locations of the subject puma and to avoid providing specific types of location data of animals on private lands per state of Colorado statutes. Domestic prey presence, Julian calendar day number, cougar identifier, cougar age, cougar sex, housing density, and prey species eaten are identified respectively by the columns: "DomesticPrey", "Days", "Entity_ID", "Entity_age", "Entity_sex", "HDM100_fs4", and "Species". Other columns used in data processing include the unique GPS location cluster identifier ("ClusterID_8day"), start data of cluster ("ClusterStart"), identification of whether the species identified was the primary prey item ("Primary_Use"). Processing code is available upon request.Cluster_Investigations.csv