Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Human? Multi‐Scale Niche Partitioning Among Wolves And Mesocarnivores in a Human‐Dominated Landscape

Aim To determine whether carnivore sympatry is hierarchically structured across spatial scales, with broad landscape filters constraining distributions and fine‐scale behavioral adjustments shaping realized overlap, and to evaluate this framework during large carnivore recolonization in human‐dominated landscapes characterized by novel risks and resource subsidies. Location Tuchola Forest, northern Poland, Central Europe. Methods We used a nested camera‐trapping design with coarse (10 km) and fine (5 km) grids, integrating Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDMs) with diel activity analyses, to quantify scale‐dependent responses and associations within a carnivore community comprising recolonizing grey wolves ( Canis lupus ) and established mesocarnivores—red foxes ( Vulpes vulpes ), European badgers ( Meles meles ), and martens ( Martes spp.)—in relation to ungulate prey—red deer ( Cervus elaphus ) and fallow deer ( Dama dama ), anthropogenic variables (including pedestrians, vehicles, and environmental modification), and free‐ranging domestic cats ( Felis catus ). Results At the landscape scale, wolf occurrence was constrained primarily by human variables, yet within occupied areas, wolves prioritized prey tracking while negotiating human risk at finer scales. Mesocarnivores showed little evidence of suppression by wolves or humans and instead converged on human‐modified spaces alongside domestic cats. Sympatry relied on temporal offsets, not strict spatial segregation. Main Conclusions Scale‐dependent organization is fundamental to understanding carnivore recovery and persistence under human dominance. Although broad anthropogenic constraints limit where species can establish, our results show that human presence does not preclude coexistence when it is structured in predictable ways that allow species to realign activity within human‐imposed temporal regimes. Life in human‐dominated landscapes thus favours behavioral flexibility and spatiotemporal adaptation over rigid niche constraints.