Behind wolf predation on wild ungulates: environmental factors influencing the distribution of kill sites in Northern Italy

• Main Authors: TORRETTA, ELISA, MERIGGI, ALBERTO, Luca, Caviglia
• Other Authors: Bro, E. & M. Guillemain, Torretta, Elisa, Meriggi, Alberto
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Office National de la Faune Sauvage 2017
• Subjects: predator-prey interaction; Canis lupus; habitat selection; wolf hunting habits
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11571/1202108

Predation is a hierarchical process whereby predators are constrained to kill prey within the area they select while hunting. Therefore kill sites are not randomly distributed, rather where kill sites occur is a function of prey distribution and predictability and environmental factors that influence prey detection, access, or the success of an attack [1]. Wolves (Canis lupus) are considered generalist apex predators, preying mainly on wild ungulates. Being socially organized in packs, usually consisting of the breeding pair and their offspring, wolves roam within their exclusive territory and cooperate during the hunt. Wolves are well adapted for cursorial predation with chases ranging from 100 m to more than 5 km [2]. The aim of this research is to identify the main environmental factors influencing the distribution of wolf kill sites, so at the same time determine which factors influenced the vulnerability of prey once the hunt began. The study was carried out in Liguria (5343 km2 region in Northern Italy; Fig. 1) The wild ungulate community includes the wild boar (Sus scrofa) and the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), widely distributed with high densities, the fallow deer (Dama dama) and the chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) more localized. Moreover, the red deer (Cervus elaphus) has a sporadic presence along the boundaries of the region. Wolves reached the Ligurian Apennines in the late 1980s (the first illegally killed wolf was found in 1990) and the Ligurian Alps in the late 1990s (the first illegally killed wolf was found in 1997). The most recent research estimated the presence of minimum five wolf packs by non-invasive genetic sampling [3]. Using data collected through a monitoring project carried out between 2007-2014 [3], we delineated wolf range using the sampled wolf genotypes by a fixed kernel estimator. We considered all claimed and verified cases of wolf predation upon wild ungulates recorded during 2007-2016, reporting the preyed species and possibly some related information (sex, age, proportion of ...