Hallinnan tavat ja suden suojelu Italiassa, Saksassa, Sloveniassa ja Suomessa

201

All carnivores are not equal in the rural people's view. Should we develop conservation plans for functional guilds or individual species in the face of conflicts?

We tested differences in attitudes towards bears, wolves and lynx among the rural public in Albania and Macedonia through information collected from a questionnaire survey (n = 759). Wolves were the species with the least positive attitudes among the rural public and had the lowest support for conservation compared with bears and lynx. In addition, conflict perception of wolves was higher than for bears and lynx. We argue that, based on species specific differences in public attitudes, conservation initiatives and management plans for large carnivores should deal with wolves separately from bears and lynx, as lower public support for wolves might jeopardise the conservation of the two other large carnivores. Bears and lynx can be potentially treated together in conservation initiatives based on the similar levels of public support for conservation, however, from a conflict-management point of view, all three species need to be addressed separately

Border Security Fencing and Wildlife:The End of the Transboundary Paradigm in Eurasia?

The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era in which, ironically, transboundary cooperation has emerged as a conservation paradigm. These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size. We summarise the extent of the issue and propose concrete mitigation measures

European agreements for nature conservation need to explicitly address wolf-dog hybridisation

202

Border Security Fencing and Wildlife: The End of the Transboundary Paradigm in Eurasia? - Fig 1

<p>A: A border security fence being constructed along the border between Slovenia (SLO) and Croatia (HR) separates all three large carnivore (LC) species in Slovenia from the core population areas in the Dinaric Mountains, impacting their long-term viability, severing the Natura 2000 network, and decreasing the potential for natural recolonization of the Alps. B: The expected effect of the fence on brown bears. Points are individual bears, genetically sampled from bear mortalities between 2003 and 2013 (<i>N</i> = 1,414), which we genotyped using 20 polymorphic microsatellite loci. Lines showing full siblings or parent–offspring relations between individuals demonstrate that the border between both countries, where the fence is now being constructed, had, up until now, no effect on movement and gene flow in this bear population. The Trio ML method (Wang 2007) was used to estimate relatedness. Lines show <i>r</i> > 0.45. Darker lines are assignments only for bears sampled in 2012 and 2013 (<i>N</i> = 296). C,D: GPS telemetry tracks of lynx (C, <i>N</i> = 11) and wolves (D, <i>N</i> = 28) show that these animals had no problems crossing the border before construction of the fence, and even had home ranges that straddled the border.</p

Extent of border security fencing along national borders in Europe and Central Asia.

<p>Extent of border security fencing along national borders in Europe and Central Asia.</p

Summary of extent of border fencing across Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, and the species of large mammals that this fencing can potentially have the largest impacts upon.

<p>Separation between primary and secondary impacts is based on our perception of their ability to cross fences. Full details of the specific borders are provided in the Supporting Information, but it is important to note that there is considerable uncertainty over the length of fencing on some borders.</p