Pastoral Herding Strategies and Governmental Management Objectives: Predation Compensation as a Risk Buffering Strategy in the Saami Reindeer Husbandry

Previously it has been found that an important risk buffering strategy in the Saami reindeer husbandry in Norway is the accumulation of large herds of reindeer as this increases long-term household viability. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated how official policies, such as economic compensation for livestock losses, can influence pastoral strategies. This study investigated the effect of received predation compensation on individual husbandry units’ future herd size. The main finding in this study is that predation compensation had a positive effect on husbandry units’ future herd size. The effect of predation compensation, however, was nonlinear in some years, indicating that predation compensation had a positive effect on future herd size only up to a certain threshold whereby adding additional predation compensation had little effect on future herd size. More importantly, the effect of predation compensation was positive after controlling for reindeer density, indicating that for a given reindeer density husbandry units receiving more predation compensation performed better (measured as the size of future herds) compared to husbandry units receiving less compensation

Risk-taking by Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in a human-dominated landscape: Effects of sex and reproductive status.

This study aimed to test how the sex and reproductive status of Eurasian lynx influenced their use of 'attractive sinks' - habitats with high prey density and high mortality risks. Locations of 24 Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx were obtained by radio-telemetry in a mixed forest and agricultural habitat in south-eastern Norway. Roe deer, the major food source of lynx in the study area, occurred at higher densities closer to areas of human activity and infrastructure. Proximity of lynx locations to human activity and infrastructure was used as a risk index because the most common causes of death among Scandinavian lynx were of anthropogenic origin. This study shows that distances from lynx locations to human activity were significantly greater for females with newborn kittens than for males, but this decreased with kitten age. The data suggest that this response to human activity is influenced by the reproductive strategies of males and females, and might explain male-biased human-induced mortality in this study and in carnivores more generally