Recovery of large carnivores in Europe’s modern human-dominated landscapes
By G. Chapron, P. Kaczensky, J. Linnell, Manuela von Arx, D. Huber, H. Andrén, J. López‐Bao, M. Adamec, F. Álvares, O. Anders and 66 more. Science, 2014
1,772 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The conservation of large carnivores is a formidable challenge for biodiversity conservation. Using a data set on the past and current status of brown bears (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), gray wolves (Canis lupus), and wolverines (Gulo gulo) in European countries, we show that roughly one-third of mainland Europe hosts at least one large carnivore species, with stable or increasing abundance in most cases in 21st-century records. The reasons for this overall conservation success include protective legislation, supportive public opinion, and a variety of practices making coexistence between large carnivores and people possible. The European situation reveals that large carnivores and people can share the same landscape. Many populations of brown bears, lynx, grey wolves, and wolverines persist successfully outside protected areas in Europe. Success for Europe's large carnivores? Despite pessimistic forecasts, Europe's large carnivores are making a comeback. Chapron et al. report that sustainable populations of brown bear, Eurasian lynx, gray wolf, and wolverine persist in one-third of mainland Europe. Moreover, many individuals and populations are surviving and increasing outside protected areas set aside for wildlife conservation. Coexistence alongside humans has become possible, argue the authors, because of improved public opinion and protective legislation. Science, this issue p. 1517
Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0f802725c667443dec426fea557c3ce51a6443d4
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Citations in the corpus
- Current status, distribution, and conservation of brown bear (Ursidae) and wild canids (gray wolf, golden jackal, and red fox; Canidae) in Turkey (2016, background): “A recent study in Europe showed that large carnivores have been recovering due to reintroductions, protection, and/or increased public awareness (Chapron et al., 2014).”
- Do wild ungulates experience higher stress with humans than with large carnivores? (2018, background): “This work was supported by the National Science Center, Poland (NSC, grant no. 2011/01/B/NZ8/04337), and partly by the European Nature Heritage Fund EURONATUR, Germany (grant nos.”
- Stop Jumping the Gun: A Call for Evidence‐Based Invasive Predator Management (2017, background): “Approaches that can aid the persistence and recovery of native top-predators include protective legislation, supportive public opinion, and nonlethal tools (e.g., guardian animals, discussed below) (Chapron et al. 2014).”
- Fear of the human “super predator” far exceeds the fear of large carnivores in a model mesocarnivore (2016, background): “In human-dominated landscapes, such as in Europe, our data indicate that the recovery (Chapron et al. 2014) or reintroduction (Manning et al. 2009; Svenning et al. 2016) of large carnivores is not likely to “restore” fear to mesocarnivores “released” from behavioral suppression (Prugh et al. 2009;…”
- Food habits of the world's grey wolves (2016, background): “The results from North America and Europe support the assumption that grey wolves are obligate carnivores whose use of prey generally depends on the availability of wild ungulates (Paquet & Carbyn 2003).”
- Large carnivore expansion in Europe is associated with human population density and land cover changes (2021, methodology): “Yellow areas represent the permanent distribution areas according to Chapron et al. (2014) (CIESIN, 2011) for 1990 and 1995 and the Gridded Population of the World (GPW), v.4 dataset (CIESIN, 2018) for 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015.”
- Large carnivore impacts are context-dependent (2017, background): “Wildlife conservation is still possible in human dominated landscapes but maintaining top-down ecological processes in such landscapes is challenging (Chapron et al. 2014; Linnell et al. 2015; López-Bao et al. 2015).”
- Restoring apex predators can reduce mesopredator abundances (2019, background): “Although apex carnivores are experiencing declines in many developing countries, some populations are recovering in the Western world (e.g., Europe, USA; Chapron et al., 2014; Bruskotter et al., 2017).”