Conservation of an urban jewel:
Assessing the impacts of human activities in Pippy Park, St. John's, NL
Example:
Yellowstone National Park in the United States has allowed snowmobile use since the 1960s as a way to increase tourism during the winter season (2).
As you can see snowmobiles produce approximately 27% of yearly carbon monoxide (CO) emissions and 77% of yearly hydrocarbon (HC) emissions (Fig.2) (2).
Figure 2. Source: Bishop et al. 2001
(C) Biol4651/7944 student
What other kinds of damage can happen?
1) Toxic Emissions:
- most motorized vehicles use 2-stroke engines; meaning they have high exhaust levels and poor fuel economy, resulting in large amounts of unburned fuel being dumped into the surrounding environment (3).
- This means that when it comes to snowmobiles once the snow melts the dumped fuel absorbs into the ground and pollutes the park watersheds!
2) Noise Production
- Winter is already a stressful time for the animals that live in the park. Adding noise only makes things worse.
- The presence of loud vehicles such as snowmobiles increase the level of stress on animals and can even change their behavior to prefer avoidance (4,5).
Example:
In Yellowstone National Park there is so much noise that the animals in the park started to panic and would either defend themselves or run away in fear(4).
Over time though, these animals may become used to the human activity. This is a problem because it means their natural behavioral patters have changed.
3) Habitat Fragmentation/Alteration:
- When snowmobiles use park land for recreation it creates new trails that run though the park. This is a huge problem for animals!
- It changes the natural behavior of the animals within the park as well as restricting their habitat ranges.
- It can also force animals into new areas outside the park that are less disturbed (5)
Example:
In Adirondack Park where snowmobiles are used small animals start to conciser the trails as a boundary of sorts and as a result it limits their habitat range (5).
Large animals like moose start to use the tails follow the trails instead of going through the forest. This means that their natural movement patters altered.
Source: palingates.blogspot.com