Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management
Predators and their protection are controversial worldwide. Gray wolves, Canis lupus, lost U.S. federal protection (delisting) and the State of Wisconsin began lethal management first among all states and tribes that regained authority over wolves. Here we evaluated the initial success of reaching t...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8265384 2023-05-15T15:51:06+02:00 Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management Treves, Adrian Santiago-Ávila, Francisco J. Putrevu, Karann 2021-07-05 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8265384/ https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11666 en eng PeerJ Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8265384/ http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11666 © 2021 Treves et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. CC-BY PeerJ Conservation Biology Text 2021 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11666 2021-07-18T00:31:53Z Predators and their protection are controversial worldwide. Gray wolves, Canis lupus, lost U.S. federal protection (delisting) and the State of Wisconsin began lethal management first among all states and tribes that regained authority over wolves. Here we evaluated the initial success of reaching the state’s explicit objective, “…to allow for a sustainable harvest that neither increases nor decreases the state’s wolf population…” We used official state figures for hunter-killed wolves, population estimates from April 2017–2020, and the latest peer-reviewed model of individual wolf survival to estimate additional deaths resulting from federal delisting. More than half of the additional deaths were predicted to be cryptic poaching under the assumption that this period resembled past periods of liberalized wolf-killing in Wisconsin. We used a precautionary approach to construct three conservative scenarios to predict the current status of this wolf population and a minimum estimate of population decline since April 2020. From our scenarios that vary in growth rates and additional mortality estimates, we expect a maximum of 695–751 wolves to be alive in Wisconsin by 15 April 2021, a minimum 27–33% decline in the preceding 12 months. This contradicts the state expectation of no change in the population size. We draw a conclusion about the adequacy of regulatory mechanisms under state control of wolves and discuss the particular governance conditions met in Wisconsin. We recommend greater rigor and independent review of the science used by agencies to plan wolf hunting quotas and methods. We recommend clearer division of duties between state wildlife agencies, legislatures, and courts. We recommend federal governments reconsider the practice of sudden deregulation of wolf management and instead recommend they consider protecting predators as non-game or transition more slowly to subnational authority, to avoid the need for emergency relisting. Text Canis lupus PubMed Central (PMC) PeerJ 9 e11666 |
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Conservation Biology Treves, Adrian Santiago-Ávila, Francisco J. Putrevu, Karann Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management |
topic_facet |
Conservation Biology |
description |
Predators and their protection are controversial worldwide. Gray wolves, Canis lupus, lost U.S. federal protection (delisting) and the State of Wisconsin began lethal management first among all states and tribes that regained authority over wolves. Here we evaluated the initial success of reaching the state’s explicit objective, “…to allow for a sustainable harvest that neither increases nor decreases the state’s wolf population…” We used official state figures for hunter-killed wolves, population estimates from April 2017–2020, and the latest peer-reviewed model of individual wolf survival to estimate additional deaths resulting from federal delisting. More than half of the additional deaths were predicted to be cryptic poaching under the assumption that this period resembled past periods of liberalized wolf-killing in Wisconsin. We used a precautionary approach to construct three conservative scenarios to predict the current status of this wolf population and a minimum estimate of population decline since April 2020. From our scenarios that vary in growth rates and additional mortality estimates, we expect a maximum of 695–751 wolves to be alive in Wisconsin by 15 April 2021, a minimum 27–33% decline in the preceding 12 months. This contradicts the state expectation of no change in the population size. We draw a conclusion about the adequacy of regulatory mechanisms under state control of wolves and discuss the particular governance conditions met in Wisconsin. We recommend greater rigor and independent review of the science used by agencies to plan wolf hunting quotas and methods. We recommend clearer division of duties between state wildlife agencies, legislatures, and courts. We recommend federal governments reconsider the practice of sudden deregulation of wolf management and instead recommend they consider protecting predators as non-game or transition more slowly to subnational authority, to avoid the need for emergency relisting. |
format |
Text |
author |
Treves, Adrian Santiago-Ávila, Francisco J. Putrevu, Karann |
author_facet |
Treves, Adrian Santiago-Ávila, Francisco J. Putrevu, Karann |
author_sort |
Treves, Adrian |
title |
Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management |
title_short |
Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management |
title_full |
Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management |
title_fullStr |
Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management |
title_full_unstemmed |
Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management |
title_sort |
quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management |
publisher |
PeerJ Inc. |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8265384/ https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11666 |
genre |
Canis lupus |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus |
op_source |
PeerJ |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8265384/ http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11666 |
op_rights |
© 2021 Treves et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11666 |
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PeerJ |
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9 |
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e11666 |
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