The effect of human disturbance
Human disturbance had a positive association with badger encounter rates, which was slightly stronger in winter (Figure 3). There was also some evidence for a positive association between humans and red fox encounter rates in summer, even though the CRI for the median overlapped 0, the probability of direction pd = 0.94 indicates a 94% chance that the effect of humans on red fox encounter rates is positive (see whole posterior distribution in Appendix 1). On the other hand, there was some evidence for a negative association between human disturbance and pine marten encounter rates, which was more certain in winter (pd = 0.75 in summer and pd = 0.99 in winter), even though the median CRI overlapped 0 (Appendix 1 and 3). Human disturbance had a strong negative association with wolf encounter rates, which was stronger in summer (Figure 3). There was also a high probability that the association between humans and lynx would be negative, even though the CRI for the median overlapped 0, only 18% of the posterior distribution was in the ROPE and pd = 0.91 (Appendix 3).