Next time you do an 鈥淥llie鈥� or an 鈥淎ir to Fakie鈥� on the slopes, spare a thought for the wildlife. You might be freaking them out.
Snowboarders and skiers are encroaching on the habitats of alpine fauna, including ptarmigan, black grouse, deer and chamois, and their presence is causing the animals鈥� stress levels to soar. Concentrations of the stress hormone corticosterone and its metabolites are 17 per cent higher in the faeces of grouse that live in areas frequented by boarders and skiers, while levels in stressed birds may soar by 60 per cent, according to Rapha毛l Arlettaz and colleagues at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
They fear the birds are being startled out of the snow burrows where they shelter from predators and the cold, losing heat and energy in the process (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2006.0434).
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Numbers of animals have declined by up to a half in some areas close to ski resorts, adding to a growing body of evidence that tourism has a detrimental impact on wildlife around the world (New 杏吧原创, 6 March 2004, p 6).
