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.

Dispersal influences the dynamics and persistence of populations, the distribution and abundance of species, and gives the communities and ecosystems their characteristic texture in space and time. The Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx is a medium-sized solitary carnivore that has been re-introduced in central Europe and currently occurs in rather small populations, where dispersal is believed to play a prominent role for the recolonization of unsettled areas and persistence of subpopulations. Between 1988 and 2001 the spatio-temporal behaviour of sub-adult Eurasian lynx was studied in two re-introduced populations in Switzerland, based on 31 juveniles of which 24 were radio-tagged to find out which factors influence dispersal. Age at independence ranged from 8.1 to 10.7 months and did not differ between populations or sex. Independence began from January to the beginning of May with a peak in April. After independence, sub-adults stayed a few days in the maternal home range. Age at dispersal differed between the areas of origin and was possibly affected by sex and the presence of new progeny. Dispersers of both sexes established transient home ranges; however, only one male in the saturated population established a transient home range. Although only females took over the maternal home range, there was no significant sex bias in the proportion of individuals that dispersed in both populations. Successful dispersers settled in a territory at distances that differed between populations with effects of sex, but not condition. The mean dispersal distance in the high-density population was 25.9 km compared to 63.1 km in the low-density population. Dispersal distances in the high-density population -shorter than those reported in other Eurasian lynx studies but comparable to those observed in an Iberian lynx population -are limited by habitat restrictions hindering connections with a neighbouring population.

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BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Use of photographic capture-recapture analyses to estimate abundance of species with distinctive natural marks has become an important tool for monitoring rare or cryptic species, or both. Two different methods are available to estimate density: nonspatial capture-recapture models where the trap polygon is buffered with the half or full mean maximum distance moved by animals captured at more than 1 trap (1/2 MMDM or MMDM, respectively); or spatial capture-recapture (SCR) models that explicitly incorporate movement into the model. We used data from radiotracked Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in the northwestern Swiss Alps (NWSA) during a low (1.0 lynx/100 km 2 ) and a high (1.9-2.1 lynx/100 km 2 ) lynx population density to test if lynx space use was density dependent. Second, we compared lynx density estimates resulting from these 2 different methods using camera-trapping data collected during winters 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 in the NWSA. Our results indicated lynx space use was negatively correlated with density. Lynx density estimates in all habitats using MMDM (0.86 and 0.97 lynx/100 km 2 in winters 2007-2008 and 2009-2010, respectively) were significantly lower than SCR model estimates, whereas there was no significant difference between SCR model (1.47 and 1.38) and 1/2 MMDM (1.37 and 1.51) density estimates. In the NWSA, which currently harbors the most abundant lynx population in Switzerland, 1/2 MMDM and SCR models provided more realistic lynx density estimates compared to the MMDM, which lies in the lower range of densities. Overall, the SCR model is preferable because it considers animal movements explicitly and is not biased by an informal estimation of the effective sampling area.

BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.