Mammal Habitat Suitability versus Human Land Modification_GillianKissel

This map shows the high/lows in habitat suitability for Santa Barbara County mammals while looking at the amount of location-specific human modification of the natural land. The datasets overlap to give a view of the 2017-18 vegetation and a consensus of the effect humans have on animal habitats. In general, and as expected, there are several large areas where humans have settled and cultivated for our own purposes; in these same places, the suitability for wildlife habitats have significantly decreased (shown in red). Evidently, low modification leads to high suitability (shown in yellow). However, these two sets of data have brought up an interesting point: highlighted in orange, a spot that has hardly been touched by people is still unsuitable for animals. This leads to the fact that humans do not bear all the blame for decreased habitats; other variables, like natural landscape, vegetation, topography, water sources, etc., also play a role in mammal habitat reduction. Animals seem to have adapted to other landscapes, if they ever did inhabit this location, but perhaps humans have left it alone for the same reason: some places are simply inhabitable.