Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting
SIMPLE SUMMARY: Humans extirpated the wolf Canis lupus from many regions of Europe. Today, the wolf is returning to many of these areas, and with it, people’s opposition due to its predatory habits on, among others, ungulate game species. Based on existing data on wolf prey selection, kill rates and...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8869524 2023-05-15T13:13:42+02:00 Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting Rodríguez-Recio, Mariano Wikenros, Camilla Zimmermann, Barbara Sand, Håkan 2022-02-16 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8869524/ https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11020317 en eng MDPI http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8869524/ http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology11020317 © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). CC-BY Biology (Basel) Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11020317 2022-02-27T01:54:00Z SIMPLE SUMMARY: Humans extirpated the wolf Canis lupus from many regions of Europe. Today, the wolf is returning to many of these areas, and with it, people’s opposition due to its predatory habits on, among others, ungulate game species. Based on existing data on wolf prey selection, kill rates and territory size, we extrapolated the results from central Sweden and Poland to southern Sweden, where wolf recolonization has not yet occurred and conservation conflicts with hunters are expected. Thus, we calculated the proportion of moose Alces alces, roe deer Capreolus capreolus, red deer Cervus elaphus, fallow deer Dama dama and wild boar Sus scrofa that would be killed by wolves in the municipalities of southern Sweden if wolf recolonization occurs. We found that the current system of five ungulate species in southern Sweden could potentially support a wolf density two to four times higher than in the current wolf distribution in central Sweden, which are mainly inhabited by roe deer and moose. With this type of research, we can anticipate and work to ameliorate the social unrest and expected conservation conflicts that may arise once wolves or other large carnivore species recolonize areas of Europe that are returning to the wild. ABSTRACT: The ongoing recolonisations of human-transformed environments in Europe by large carnivores like the wolf Canis lupus means that conservation conflicts could re-surface, among other reasons, due to predation on ungulate game species. We estimated the effect of wolves on ungulate species using data on wolf prey selection, kill rates and territory size to build a hypothetical case of future expansion. We extrapolated results on predation from the current wolf distribution in central Sweden and eastern Poland to the eventual wolf recolonisation of southern Sweden. We then calculated the proportion of five ungulate game species killed annually by wolves, and the ratio between the predicted annual predation by wolves given future colonization and the number of ungulates currently ... Text Alces alces Canis lupus PubMed Central (PMC) Biology 11 2 317 |
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Article Rodríguez-Recio, Mariano Wikenros, Camilla Zimmermann, Barbara Sand, Håkan Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting |
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description |
SIMPLE SUMMARY: Humans extirpated the wolf Canis lupus from many regions of Europe. Today, the wolf is returning to many of these areas, and with it, people’s opposition due to its predatory habits on, among others, ungulate game species. Based on existing data on wolf prey selection, kill rates and territory size, we extrapolated the results from central Sweden and Poland to southern Sweden, where wolf recolonization has not yet occurred and conservation conflicts with hunters are expected. Thus, we calculated the proportion of moose Alces alces, roe deer Capreolus capreolus, red deer Cervus elaphus, fallow deer Dama dama and wild boar Sus scrofa that would be killed by wolves in the municipalities of southern Sweden if wolf recolonization occurs. We found that the current system of five ungulate species in southern Sweden could potentially support a wolf density two to four times higher than in the current wolf distribution in central Sweden, which are mainly inhabited by roe deer and moose. With this type of research, we can anticipate and work to ameliorate the social unrest and expected conservation conflicts that may arise once wolves or other large carnivore species recolonize areas of Europe that are returning to the wild. ABSTRACT: The ongoing recolonisations of human-transformed environments in Europe by large carnivores like the wolf Canis lupus means that conservation conflicts could re-surface, among other reasons, due to predation on ungulate game species. We estimated the effect of wolves on ungulate species using data on wolf prey selection, kill rates and territory size to build a hypothetical case of future expansion. We extrapolated results on predation from the current wolf distribution in central Sweden and eastern Poland to the eventual wolf recolonisation of southern Sweden. We then calculated the proportion of five ungulate game species killed annually by wolves, and the ratio between the predicted annual predation by wolves given future colonization and the number of ungulates currently ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Rodríguez-Recio, Mariano Wikenros, Camilla Zimmermann, Barbara Sand, Håkan |
author_facet |
Rodríguez-Recio, Mariano Wikenros, Camilla Zimmermann, Barbara Sand, Håkan |
author_sort |
Rodríguez-Recio, Mariano |
title |
Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting |
title_short |
Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting |
title_full |
Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting |
title_fullStr |
Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting |
title_full_unstemmed |
Rewilding by Wolf Recolonisation, Consequences for Ungulate Populations and Game Hunting |
title_sort |
rewilding by wolf recolonisation, consequences for ungulate populations and game hunting |
publisher |
MDPI |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8869524/ https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11020317 |
genre |
Alces alces Canis lupus |
genre_facet |
Alces alces Canis lupus |
op_source |
Biology (Basel) |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8869524/ http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology11020317 |
op_rights |
© 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11020317 |
container_title |
Biology |
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11 |
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2 |
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317 |
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1766259981547470848 |