DOI: 10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzf3
title: Data from: Captures do not affect escape response to humans in Alpine marmot

description: Capture and manipulation are an integral part of wildlife research and
 management. These practices, however, can affect animals either directly
 or indirectly, and studies should generally evaluate the consequences of
 captures to ensure animal welfare and reduce sampling bias. Here, we
 investigated the indirect, behavioural effects of live-capture on escape
 response to humans in Alpine marmot Marmota marmota within the Stelvio
 National Park (central Italian Alps) over three seasons (2021- 2023). We
 used flight initiation distance (FID) as a measure of escape response and
 tested it in relation to capture status using linear mixed modelling.
 Captures did not have any detectable effect on escape response, and FID
 was best explained by covariates such as starting distance, distance to
 nearest burrow, current behaviour during the observation and year of
 observation. It might be that, in marmots, escape response to humans is a
 rather inert behaviour. As such, although we cannot rule out unmeasured
 effects, capture may not represent an excessively traumatic experience
 which could trigger immediate behavioural modification. In turn, capture
 is unlikely to compromise animal welfare or cause scientific bias in
 studies investigating escape response in this species, at least over the
 short term.
description: # Data from: Captures do not affect escape response to humans in Alpine
 marmot In this publication, we investigated the indirect, behavioural
 effects of live-capture on escape response to humans in Alpine marmot
 Marmota marmota within the Stelvio National Park (central Italian Alps)
 over three seasons (2021- 2023). We used flight initiation distance (FID)
 as a measure of escape response and tested it in relation to capture
 status and factors related to FID using linear mixed modeling. This README
 file describes the data accompanying the publication. The dataset used for
 the final version of the manuscript is named
 "Data_Giari.et.al.2024.Wildlife.Biology2.csv". Files
 descriptions: Data_Giari.et.al.2024.Wildlife.Biology2.csv: This file
 contains all the data on the FID test carried out during 2021, 2022 and
 2023 seasons in the Stelvio National. The dataset contains all the
 information required for the statistical analysis. Following are the
 definitions of the terms and abbreviations used to name the variables for
 the analysis: id_fid:fid test identity (*= sequential number of the test);
 jdate: Julian date counting from the 1st day of January 2021, 2022 and
 2023; day_hr: time of day; year: year of observation (i.e., 2021, 2022 and
 2023); uid: the identity of the focal individual; family: the identity of
 the family group membership associated with the focal individual;
 tourism_level: level of tourism intensity associated with family group
 (low-medium-high); capture: capture status (binary variable: captured /
 non-captured) of the focal individual; cum_capt_tot: cumulative number of
 captures of the focal individual before the observation; cum_capt_year:
 cumulative number of captures during the year of the focal individual
 before the observation; walker: identity of the person who approached the
 focal individual during the observation; clouds_pct: cover clouds
 percentage before the observation (from 0% = "no clouds" to 100%
 = "fully covered"; age_class: age class of the focal individual
 (1 year old; adult); start_distance: distance (in m) from the walker
 initial position and the point where the animal first fled; fid.1:
 distance (in m) from the walker position to the focal individual position
 when the latter fled; burrow_distance: distance (in m) from the focal
 individual position to the escape burrow; ac.consp: alarm calls from
 conspecifics within 5 m radius (binary status); consp.5tot: cumulative
 number of conspecifics within 5 m radius at the beginning of the test;
 behaviour2: displayed behaviour at the beginning of the test ( i.e. forage
 and “others”). Comments and requests should be addressed to Chiara Giari:
 [chiara.giari21@gmail.com](mailto:chiara.giari21@gmail.com). All material
 is free to use, but we would appreciate being told, and this dataset and
 the matching paper cited.