scholarly journals Evaluating how lethal management affects poaching of Mexican wolves

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Louchouarn ◽  
Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila ◽  
David R. Parsons ◽  
Adrian Treves
Keyword(s):  
Canis Lupus ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Lethal Management ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Canis Lupus Baileyi ◽  
Illegal Killing

AbstractDespite illegal killing (poaching) being the major cause of death among large carnivores globally, little is known about the effect of implementing lethal management policies on poaching. Two opposing hypotheses have been proposed in the literature: implementing lethal management may decrease poaching incidence (‘killing for tolerance’) or increase it (‘facilitated illegal killing’). Here, we report a test of the two opposed hypotheses that poaching (reported and unreported) of Mexican grey wolves (Canis lupus baileyi) in Arizona and New Mexico, USA, responded to changes in policy that reduced protections to allow more wolf-killing. We employ advanced biostatistical survival and competing-risk methods to data on individual resightings, mortality and disappearances of collared Mexican wolves, supplemented with Bayes Factors to assess strength of evidence. We find inconclusive evidence for any decreases in reported poaching. We also find strong evidence that Mexican wolves were 121% more likely to disappear during periods of reduced protections than during periods of stricter protections, with only slight changes in legal removals by the agency. Therefore, we find strong support for the ‘facilitated illegal killing’ hypothesis and none for the ‘killing for tolerance’ hypothesis. We provide recommendations for improving the effectiveness of US policy on environmental crimes, endangered species, and protections for wild animals. Our results have implications beyond the USA or wolves because the results suggest transformations of decades-old management interventions against human-caused mortality among wild animals subject to high rates of poaching.

scholarly journals Evaluating how lethal management affects poaching of Mexican wolves

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi X. Louchouarn ◽  
Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila ◽  
David R. Parsons ◽  
Adrian Treves
Keyword(s):  
Canis Lupus ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Lethal Management ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Canis Lupus Baileyi ◽  
Illegal Killing

Despite illegal killing (poaching) being the major cause of death among large carnivores globally, little is known about the effect of implementing lethal management policies on poaching. Two opposing hypotheses have been proposed in the literature: implementing lethal management may decrease poaching incidence (killing for tolerance) or increase it (facilitated illegal killing). Here, we report a test of the two opposed hypotheses that poaching (reported and unreported) of Mexican grey wolves ( Canis lupus baileyi ) in Arizona and New Mexico, USA, responded to changes in policy that reduced protections to allow more wolf-killing. We employ advanced biostatistical survival and competing risk methods to data on individual resightings, mortality and disappearances of collared Mexican wolves, supplemented with Bayes factors to assess the strength of evidence. We find inconclusive evidence for any decreases in reported poaching. We also find strong evidence that Mexican wolves were 121% more likely to disappear during periods of reduced protections than during periods of stricter protections, with only slight changes in legal removals by the agency. Therefore, we find strong support for the ‘facilitated illegal killing’ hypothesis and none for the ‘killing for tolerance’ hypothesis. We provide recommendations for improving the effectiveness of US policy on environmental crimes, endangered species and protections for wild animals. Our results have implications beyond the USA or wolves because the results suggest transformations of decades-old management interventions against human-caused mortality among wild animals subject to high rates of poaching.

scholarly journals Are Large Carnivores the Real Issue? Solutions for Improving Conflict Management through Stakeholder Participation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4482
Author(s):  
Valeria Salvatori ◽  
Estelle Balian ◽  
Juan Carlos Blanco ◽  
Xavier Carbonell ◽  
Paolo Ciucci ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stakeholder Participation ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
Species Expansion ◽  
General Scope

Social conflicts around large carnivores are increasing in Europe, often associated to the species expansion into human-modified and agricultural landscapes. Large carnivores can be seen as an added value by some but as a source of difficulties by others, depending on different values, attitudes, livelihoods, and everyday activities. Therefore, the effective involvement of the different interest groups is important to identify and shape tailored solutions that can potentially be implemented, complementing top-down approaches that might, on their own, result in lack of implementation and buy-in. To improve dialogue in conflictual situations, as part of a European project promoted by the European Parliament, we assessed the practical implementation of participatory processes in three sample areas in Europe where wolves and bears have recently been increasingly impacting human activities. Our results demonstrate that collaboration among different and generally contrasting groups is possible. Even in situations where large-carnivore impacts were seen as unsatisfactorily managed for many years, people were still willing and eager to be involved in alternative discussion processes hoping this would lead to concrete solutions. An important and common highlight among the three study areas was that all the management interventions agreed upon shared the general scope of improving the conditions of the groups most impacted by large carnivores. The process showed the importance of building trust and supporting dialogue for knowledge co-production and mitigation of conflicts between stakeholders and that controversial environmental issues have the potential to trigger a meaningful dialogue about broader societal issues. The direct involvement and support of competent authorities, as well as the upscaling of this process at larger administrative and social scales, remain important challenges.

scholarly journals Table scraps: inter-trophic food provisioning by pumas

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 776-779 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Mark Elbroch ◽  
Heiko U. Wittmer
Keyword(s):  
Canis Lupus ◽  
National Park ◽  
Puma Concolor ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Food Provisioning ◽  
Ecological Functions ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Food Subsidies ◽  
Vultur Gryphus ◽  
Natural Communities

Large carnivores perform keystone ecological functions through direct predation, or indirectly, through food subsidies to scavengers or trophic cascades driven by their influence on the distributions of their prey. Pumas ( Puma concolor ) are an elusive, cryptic species difficult to study and little is known about their inter-trophic-level interactions in natural communities. Using new GPS technology, we discovered that pumas in Patagonia provided 232 ± 31 kg of edible meat/month/100 km 2 to near-threatened Andean condors ( Vultur gryphus ) and other members of a diverse scavenger community. This is up to 3.1 times the contributions by wolves ( Canis lupus ) to communities in Yellowstone National Park, USA, and highlights the keystone role large, solitary felids play in natural systems. These findings are more pertinent than ever, for managers increasingly advocate controlling pumas and other large felids to bolster prey populations and mitigate concerns over human and livestock safety, without a full understanding of the potential ecological consequences of their actions.

scholarly journals Presencia de doble estro anual en una hembra de lobo mexicano (Canis lupus baileyi) en cautiverio

Therya ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 539-549
Author(s):  
Ma. de la Asunción Soto ◽  
Carmen Vázquez ◽  
Xochitl Ramos ◽  
Ma. de Lourdes Yáñez L. ◽  
Miguel A. Armella
Keyword(s):  
Canis Lupus ◽  
Canis Lupus Baileyi

scholarly journals Shoot, shovel and shut up: cryptic poaching slows restoration of a large carnivore in Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1730) ◽  
pp. 910-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olof Liberg ◽  
Guillaume Chapron ◽  
Petter Wabakken ◽  
Hans Christian Pedersen ◽  
N. Thompson Hobbs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Canis Lupus ◽  
State Space Model ◽  
Total Mortality ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Population Recovery ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Space Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
Conservation Plans

Poaching is a widespread and well-appreciated problem for the conservation of many threatened species. Because poaching is illegal, there is strong incentive for poachers to conceal their activities, and consequently, little data on the effects of poaching on population dynamics are available. Quantifying poaching mortality should be a required knowledge when developing conservation plans for endangered species but is hampered by methodological challenges. We show that rigorous estimates of the effects of poaching relative to other sources of mortality can be obtained with a hierarchical state–space model combined with multiple sources of data. Using the Scandinavian wolf ( Canis lupus ) population as an illustrative example, we show that poaching accounted for approximately half of total mortality and more than two-thirds of total poaching remained undetected by conventional methods, a source of mortality we term as ‘cryptic poaching’. Our simulations suggest that without poaching during the past decade, the population would have been almost four times as large in 2009. Such a severe impact of poaching on population recovery may be widespread among large carnivores. We believe that conservation strategies for large carnivores considering only observed data may not be adequate and should be revised by including and quantifying cryptic poaching.

Genetic Variability in Six Mexican Gray Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) Populations Determined by Microsatellite Markers

2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-136
Author(s):  
M. T. Jaramillo-Jaimes ◽  
A. M. Sifuentes-Rincón ◽  
M. T. Sánchez Torres-Esqueda ◽  
G. D. Mendoza-Martínez ◽  
F. Clemente-Sánchez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variability ◽  
Microsatellite Markers ◽  
Canis Lupus ◽  
Gray Wolf ◽  
Canis Lupus Baileyi

scholarly journals Effectiveness of a confinement strategy for reducing campsite impacts in Shenandoah National Park

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 274-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
SCOTT E. REID ◽  
JEFFREY L. MARION
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Adaptive Management ◽  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Persistent Problem ◽  
Shenandoah National Park ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Selection Of

The expansion and proliferation of backcountry campsites is a persistent problem in many parks and protected areas. Shenandoah National Park (SNP) has one of the highest backcountry overnight use densities in the USA national parks system. SNP managers implemented a multi-option backcountry camping policy in 2000 that included camping containment with established campsites. These actions were intended to reduce the number of campsites and the area of camping disturbance at each site. This paper describes a longitudinal adaptive management assessment of the new campsite policies, applying quantitative measures of campsite conditions to evaluate the efficacy of management interventions. Physical campsite measurements combined with qualitative visitor interviews indicated SNP had successfully reduced the number of campsites and aggregate measures of camping-related disturbance in the Park, while minimizing the use of regulations, site facilities and staff resources. Implications for managers of other protected areas are that an established site camping policy can minimize camping disturbance, including the number and size of campsites, provided managers can sustain rehabilitation efforts to close and restore unneeded campsites. Experiential attributes, such as the potential for solitude, can also be manipulated through control over the selection of established campsites. Integrating resource and social science methods also provided a more holistic perspective on management policy assessments. Adaptive management research provided a timely evaluation of management success while facilitating effective modifications in response to unforeseen challenges. Conclusions regarding the effectiveness of a visitor impact containment strategy involving an established site camping option are offered.

Tracking non-native vertebrate species: indicator design for the United States of America

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Meyerson ◽  
Richard Engeman ◽  
Robin O'Malley
Keyword(s):  
Native Species ◽  
The United States ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Vertebrate Species ◽  
Monitoring And Control ◽  
National Scale ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
And Control ◽  
National Environmental

Basic information on the distribution, spread and impacts of non-native species in the USA is not available to those who shape national environmental policy. Although the USA spends billions of dollars annually on introduced species research, monitoring and control efforts, only a limited number of government agencies or private institutions are able to provide definitive reports on more than a handful of these species at a national scale. Research on invasive species is only of marginal practical value if the information cannot be succinctly and effectively transmitted to those who determine the management policies, budgets and objectives. To remedy this situation, a national-scale approach for monitoring established non-native species has been developed under the auspices of the Heinz Center as part of ‘The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems’ project. This paper specifically describes the strategies for reporting on indicators for non-native vertebrate species developed through inputs by experts from academia, industry, environmental organisations and government.

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