Human shield: a context-dependent strategy of roe deer in an alpine human-dominated landscape

Animals in anthropogenic landscapes face the dual threat of disturbance from humans and predation risk from predators and hunters. However, despite increasing evidence of the human impact on animal behavior, our understanding of how wildlife adapt their habitat selection to different landscapes of fear created by both humans and predators remains limited. In this context, it has been proposed that prey species may reduce the likelihood of encountering predators by selecting habitats in proximity to human infrastructure (the human shield hypothesis). Here we investigated how roe deer adapted their habitat selection during the hunting season in three study areas in the Alps (France, Slovenia and Italy), differing in large carnivore presence, hunting pressure, and anthropogenic and environmental characteristics. We built resource selection functions using GPS locations from 45 adult roe deer and fine-scale spatial data on human harvest of wild ungulates. We found the first evidence for the human shield hypothesis for roe deer in relation to harvest risk. In daytime, roe deer reduced their distance to buildings in areas where harvest risk was relatively high, but with high individual variability and spatial constraints. Functionally, human shield behavior emerged where buildings were spatially accessible within home ranges. We observed significant differences in habitat selection among study areas, with the strongest response observed where wolf presence and human disturbance were the highest. Our findings demonstrate strong context-dependent variation in response to risk across dynamic landscapes of fear in the Alps and provide insights for long-term wildlife management in human-dominated landscapes. • Human activities shape roe deer spatial behaviour in human-dominated Alpine landscapes. • Roe deer consistently selected areas closer to forest as harvest risk increased, across the three Alpine study areas. • Buildings can act as a human shield from hunters, although the effect varied by accessibility, individual and local context. • Responses were strongest under cumulative risk from natural predation and human disturbance. • Findings provide practical insights for human-wildlife coexistence.