Bringing Large Mammals Back: Large Carnivores in Europe

The last century has seen a dramatic reversal in the status of large carnivores in Europe. A suite of co-occurring factors has permitted a large-scale recovery of most populations. We currently recognise 10 populations of each species, most of which are transboundary in nature. The sizes of these populations vary from some tens to many thousand, with current estimates being around 17,000 bears, 10,000 wolves and 10,000 lynx in Europe (excluding Russia). As the situation moves from averting extinction to planning recovery it is logical to ask how far the recovery can go, and what our conservation goals should be, especially in light of the emerging rewilding discourse. For a variety of ecological, practical and strategic reasons, it seems unlikely that restoring "wilderness" or "natural ecological processes" (in the sense that human activity and influence are excluded) will serve as general models for large carnivore conservation on a large scale. We suggest a focus on developing a "coexistence" model that aims to create a sustainable interaction between humans and large carnivores by encouraging conservation of these species in very large areas of the European landscape, encouraging the development of a wide range of ecological processes, including predation and scavenging, while accepting that human influence on all trophic levels is pervasive, legitimate, necessary and often even desirable. This constitutes a desire to create a new form of relationship between humans and wildness that has never existed before, and therefore does not fall within the conventional meanings of the rewilding paradigm

Smartphone app reveals that lynx avoid human recreationists on local scale, but not home range scale

Outdoor recreation is increasing and affects habitat use and selection by wildlife. These effects are challenging to study, especially for elusive species with large spatial requirements, as it is hard to obtain reliable proxies of recreational intensity over extensive areas. Commonly used proxies, such as the density of, or distance to, hiking paths, ignore outdoor recreation occurring on other linear feature types. Here we utilized crowdsourced data from the Strava training app to obtain a large-scale proxy for pedestrian outdoor recreation intensity in southeast Norway. We used the proxy and GPS-tracking data from collared Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) to investigate how recreation affects habitat selection at the home range scale and local scale by lynx during summer. We fitted resource selection functions at the two scales using conditional logistic regression. Our analysis revealed that lynx avoided areas of recreational activity at the local scale, but not at home range scale. Nonetheless, lynx frequently used areas associated with recreation, and to a greater degree at night than during the day. Our results suggest that local-scale avoidance of recreation and temporal adjustments of habitat use by lynx mitigate the need for a home range-scale response towards recreation. Scale-dependent responses and temporal adjustments in habitat use may facilitate coexistence between humans and large carnivores

Sharing Spaces and Entanglements With Big Cats: The Warli and Their Waghoba in Maharashtra, India

Long histories of sharing space and resources have built complex, robust, and enduring relationships between humans and wildlife in many communities across the world. In order to understand what makes it possible for humans and wildlife to share space, we have to look beyond the ecological and socio-economic study of damages caused by human-wildlife conflict and explore the cultural and societal context within which co-existence is embedded. We conducted an exploratory study on the institution of Waghoba, a big cat deity worshiped by the Indigenous Warli community in Maharashtra, India. Through our research, we found that the worship of Waghoba is highly prevalent, with 150 shrines dedicated to this deity across our study site. We also learnt that the Warlis believe in a reciprocal relationship, where Waghoba will protect them from the negative impacts of sharing spaces with big cats if the people worship the deity and conduct the required rituals, especially the annual festival of Waghbaras. We propose that such relationships facilitate the sharing spaces between humans and leopards that live in the landscape. The study also revealed the ways in which the range of institutions and stakeholders in the landscape shape the institution of Waghoba and thereby contribute to the human-leopard relationship in the landscape. This is relevant for present-day wildlife conservation because such traditional institutions are likely to act as tolerance-building mechanisms embedded within the local cosmology. Further, it is vital that the dominant stakeholders outside of the Warli community (such as the Forest Department, conservation biologists, and other non-Warli residents who interact with leopards) are informed about and sensitive to these cultural representations because it is not just the biological animal that the Warlis predominantly deal with

Selectivity of eurasian lynx Lynx lynx and recreational hunters for age, sex and body condition in roe deer Capreolus capreolus

tional hunters for age, sex and condition in roe deerCapreolus capreolus.-Wildl. Biol. 13: 467-474. Data on the age, sex and condition of roe deer Capreolus capreolus killed by Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx and human hunters were collected in two study areas in the counties of Nord-Trøndelag and Hedmark in central and southeastern Norway, respectively. Data on the age and sex structure of the standing population were also collected. No differences in the age or sex structure of roe deer killed by lynx were found between the two study areas or between years with differing snow depths which was ex-pected to affect age-class vulnerability. The profile of 151 lynx-killed roe deer (24 % adult males, 44 % adult females, 11 % male fawns and 21% female fawns) was not statistically different from that of the standing population. In contrast, hunters killed a significantly larger proportion of adult animals, especially males (44 % adult males, 28 % adult females, 15 % male fawns and 13 % female fawns). The detailed age structure of lynx killed and hunter killed animals was not different within the adult age class. The body condition of roe deer declined during late winter (more so for males than for females), however, there was no difference in the con-dition of roe deer killed by lynx or hunters during early winter (the hunt-ing season ends on 24 December). The overall picture is typical of a stalk-ing predator that has few options to select individuals based on condition, age or sex in a prey species with no sexual dimorphism and which is relatively small in relation to the size of the predator (lynx are 50-70% the size of an adult roe deer). Human hunters, on the other hand, are clearly harvesting a non-random section of the population. The result is that hunting does not replicate natural predation, although lynx preda-tion is likely to have a higher per capita impact on roe deer growth rates

Altitude, latitude and climate zone as determinants of mountain hare (Lepus timidus) coat colour change

Local adaptation to annually changing environments has evolved in numerous species. Seasonal coat colour change is an adaptation that has evolved in multiple mammal and bird species occupying areas that experience seasonal snow cover. It has a critical impact on fitness as predation risk may increase when an individual is mismatched against its habitat's background colour. In this paper, we investigate the correlation between landscape covariates and moult timing in a native winter-adapted herbivore, the mountain hare (Lepus timidus), throughout Norway. Data was collected between 2011 and 2019 at 678 camera trap locations deployed across an environmental gradient. Based on this data, we created a Bayesian multinomial logistic regression model that quantified the correlations between landscape covariates and coat colour phenology and analysed among season and year moult timing variation. Our results demonstrate that mountain hare moult timing is strongly correlated with altitude and latitude with hares that live at higher latitudes and altitudes keeping their winter white coats for longer than their conspecifics that inhabit lower latitudes and altitudes. Moult timing was also weakly correlated with climate zone with hares that live in coastal climates keeping their winter white coats for longer than hares that live in continental climates. We found evidence of some among year moult timing variation in spring, but not in autumn. We conclude that mountain hare moult timing has adapted to local environmental conditions throughout Norway

Forestry and environmental conditions as determinants of pine marten Martes martes occurrence in Norway

The European pine marten Martes martes is often associated with late seral stage coniferous forest stands. Earlier research has indicated that this species may be negatively influenced by clearcutting practices. However, the effects of current clearcutting methods on pine marten occurrence in conjunction with changing environmental conditions are not well known. In this study, we combined four complete years of nationwide data collected during a long-term camera trap (CT) monitoring program in Norway. We employed a multi-scale occupancy model to investigate the relationship of pine marten occurrence to clearcuts (regenerating stands & LE; 10 years old) and forests & GE; 120 years old. We also examined pine marten detection in relation to habitat features (i.e. dominant microsite characteristics) and to varying snow depths and temperatures. We found no relationship between pine marten occurrence and the proportions of old forest and clearcuts at the landscape scale. At the habitat-patch scale, pine marten occurrence was positively associated with the presence of old forest patches and terrain ruggedness, but not with clearcuts & LE; 100 m from sites. At CT sites near clearcuts, the detection probability was negatively correlated with snow depth. In contrast, pine marten occurrence was positively associated with snow depth at CT sites > 100 m from clearcuts. Furthermore, the detection probability increased with temperature and the presence of boulders at CT sites. Boulders may provide important access points for foraging, and cover for resting and predator avoidance. While previous studies indicate that pine martens prefer older forest and avoid clearcuts, the current level and scale of clearcutting in Norway does not appear to influence its occurrence at the landscape scale

Quantifying the checks and balances of collaborative governance systems for adaptive carnivore management

Recovering or threatened carnivore populations are often harvested to minimise their impact on human activities, such as livestock farming or game hunting. Increasingly, harvest quota decisions involve a set of scientific, administrative and political institutions operating at national and sub-national levels whose interactions and collective decision-making aim to increase the legitimacy of management and ensure population targets are met. In practice, however, assessments of how quota decisions change between these different actors and what consequences these changes have on population trends are rare. We combine a state-space population modelling approach with an analysis of quota decisions taken at both regional and national levels between 2007 and 2018 to build a set of decision-making models that together predict annual harvest quota values for Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Norway. We reveal a tendency for administrative decision-makers to compensate for consistent quota increases by political actors, particularly when the lynx population size estimate is above the regional target. Using population forecasts based on the ensemble of decision-making models, we show that such buffering of political biases ensures lynx population size remains close to regional and national targets in the long term. Our results go beyond the usual qualitative assessment of collaborative governance systems for carnivore management, revealing a system of checks and balances that, in the case of lynx in Norway, ensures both multi-stakeholder participation and sustainable harvest quotas. Nevertheless, we highlight important inter-regional differences in decision-making and population forecasts, the socio-ecological drivers of which need to be better understood to prevent future population declines. Synthesis and applications. Our work analyses the sequence of decisions leading to yearly quotas for lynx harvest in Norway, highlighting the collaborative and structural processes that together shape harvest sustainability. In doing so, we provide a predictive framework to evaluate participatory decision-making processes in wildlife management, paving the way for scientists and decision-makers to collaborate more widely in identifying where decision biases might lie and how institutional arrangements can be optimised to minimise them. We emphasise, however, that this is only possible if wildlife management decisions are documented and transparent