Wildlife Responses to a Resident a Family: A Three-Year Camera Census on Restored Prairie–Savanna (2024–2026)

Damian Anthony Vraniak

A steward-conducted trail-camera census on a restored prairie–savanna complex in Washburn County, Wisconsin, labeled every frame from ten cameras at nine fixed stations for 2024, 2025 and January–June 2026 (11,820 frames; 11,135 estimated wildlife individuals; 1,027 frames of the resident family). White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) made up 67–83% of wildlife individuals in each year. Estimated individuals were nearly identical in the two complete years (4,743 and 4,792) while camera effort rose, so detections per unit effort fell (111.7 to 82.8 per 100 frames). A rise in mesocarnivores between 2024 and 2025 (6.6% to 11.1% of individuals, led by coyote) did not persist into spring 2026 (4.9%), and is interpreted as a single-year pulse. Daily activity separated the community into diurnal (wild turkey, people), crepuscular (deer) and nocturnal (coyote, raccoon) groups; the coefficient of overlap with people ranged from 0.20 (raccoon) to 0.74 (turkey). A response index — the median return interval to a camera after a human detection divided by the species' own baseline interval of return — placed deer at no measurable delay (0.99) and identified wild turkey as the one species that shares the family's hours and still delays (1.89 at overlap 0.74) after a person passed by. The apparent wariness of raccoon (1.63) and coyote (1.27) coincided with low overlap with humans and is interpreted as temporal separation. In relation to white-tailed deer separated by sex, does returned near their own rhythm after people (1.08) and after predators (0.95), while bucks delayed (2.24 and 2.18; Mann–Whitney P < 0.001; bootstrap gap intervals excluding zero), at matched temporal overlap. The buck delay was similar in 2024 and 2025 compared to coyote, black bear, bobcat and the large-canid class, and it relaxed inside the May–June fawning window (bucks 1.07 after people, 1.01 after predators) while does were unchanged. In spring 2026 does delayed after people (March–June index 1.70; bucks 1.48 on a thin sample). This delay centered in March–April and June rather than in the May fawning peak, in the spring when there was the most foot traffic and extensive brushing; it is reported as a lead. Frames containing the family's children overlapped the carnivore guild in proportion to each carnivore's diurnality (bobcat 0.53, black bear 0.50, coyote 0.29, raccoon 0.21), and no more than adults' frames did. Gray wolves were detected twice in three years; the regional wolf record is reported in companion preprints. On this home ground, the tolerance of people commonly attributed to deer belongs largely to the does.