Effectiveness of Lethal, Directed Wolf‐Depredation Control in Minnesota

Harper, Elizabeth K.; Paul, W.; Mech, L. David; Weisberg, Sanford

doi:10.2193/2007-273

Cited by 45 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“… 1 Allen and Sparkes (); 2 Anderson et al (); 3 Azevedo and Murray (); 4 Bagchi and Mishra (); 5 Van Bommel et al (); 6 Bradley and Pletscher (); 7 Breck et al (); 8 Espuno et al (); 9 Gula (); 10 Gusset et al (); 11 Harper et al (); 12 Herfindal et al (); 13 Huygens et al (); 14 Iliopoulos et al (); 15 Karanth et al (); 16 Kolowski and Holekamp (); 17 Van Liere et al (); 18 Mech et al (); 19 Michalski et al (); 20 Odden et al (); 21 Odden et al (); 22 Ogada et al (); 23 Sagor et al (); 24 Stahl et al (); 25 Stahl et al (); 26 Stander (); 27 Suryawanshi et al (); 28 Treves et al (); 29 Tumenta et al (); 30 Valeix et al (); 31 Wilson et al (); 32 Woodroffe et al (); 33 Woodroffe et al (); 34 Zarco‐González et al ().…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of contemporary techniques for reducing livestock depredations by large carnivores

et al. 2016

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Mitigation of large carnivore depredation is essential to increasing stakeholder support for human-carnivore coexistence. Lethal and non-lethal techniques are implemented by managers, livestock producers, and other stakeholders to reduce livestock depredations by large carnivores. However, information regarding the relative effectiveness of techniques commonly used to reduce livestock depredations is currently lacking. We evaluated 66 published, peer-reviewed research papers that quantitatively measured livestock depredation before and after employing 4 categories of lethal and non-lethal mitigation techniques (livestock husbandry, predator deterrents and removal, and indirect management of land or wild prey) to assess their relative effectiveness as livestock protection strategies. Effectiveness of each technique was measured as the reported percent change in livestock losses. Husbandry (42-100% effective) and deterrents (0-100% effective) demonstrated the greatest potential but also the widest variability in effectiveness in reducing livestock losses. Removal of large carnivores never achieved 100% effectiveness but exhibited the lowest variation (67-83%). Although explicit measures of effectiveness were not reported for indirect management, livestock depredations commonly decreased with sparser and greater distances from vegetation cover, at greater distances from protected areas, and in areas with greater wild prey abundance. Information on time duration of effects was available only for deterrents; a tradeoff existed between the effectiveness of tools and the length of time a tool remained effective. Our assessment revealed numerous sources of bias regarding the effectiveness of techniques as reported in the peer-reviewed literature, including a lack of replication across species and geographic regions, a focus on Canid carnivores in the United States, Europe, and Africa, and a publication bias toward studies reporting positive effects. Given these limitations, we encourage managers and conservationists to work with livestock producers to more consistently and quantitatively measure and report the impacts of mitigation techniques under a wider range of environmental, economic, and sociological conditions. Ó 2016 The Wildlife Society.KEY WORDS human-carnivore coexistence, human-wildlife conflict, large carnivore conservation, lethal control, non-lethal management.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of contemporary techniques for reducing livestock depredations by large carnivores

et al. 2016

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“…We used data on mass and color of wolves older than 1 year live-trapped for a radio-tracking study in northern Cook, Lake, and St. Louis counties from 1968 to 2006 (Mech 2009) and captured for a US Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services depredation-control program from 1975 through 2006 (Fritts 1982;Harper et al 2005Harper et al , 2008 in Lake, St. Louis, Koochiching, Itasca, Lake-of-the-woods, Beltrami, Clearwater, Kittson, Roseau, Marshall, Polk, Pennington, and Red Lake counties, arranging the data point for each county or group of counties centrally across the northern Minnesota map (Fig. 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wolf body mass cline across Minnesota related to taxonomy?

Mech

Paul

2008

Can. J. Zool.

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Recent genetic studies suggest that in northern Minnesota two species of wolves (Canis lupus L., 1758 or western wolf and Canis lycaon Schreber, 1775 (= Canis rufus Audubon and Bachman, 1851) or eastern wolf) meet and hybridize. However, little morphological information is available about these two types of wolves in Minnesota. We analyzed the mass of 950 female wolves and 1006 males older than 1 year from across northern Minnesota and found that it increased from 26.30 ± 0.56 kg (mean ± SE) for females and 30.60 ± 0.72 kg for males in northeastern Minnesota to 30.01 ± 0.43 kg for females and 35.94 ± 0.45 kg for males in northwestern Minnesota (females: r2 = 0.79, P < 0.02; males: r2 = 0.63, P = 0.06). These mass differences add morphological information to the identities of eastern and western wolves and support the view that ranges of the two species meet in Minnesota.

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“…If non‐depredating packs dissolve in response to harvest, surviving or colonizing wolves may begin to prey on livestock (Bjorge and Gunson ). In addition, studies reported lethal removal, particularly of entire packs, reduced the likelihood of future predation events on livestock locally (Bjorge and Gunson , Bradley et al ) but not population‐wide (Harper et al ). Frequent turnover of packs may therefore affect conflicts with livestock depending on the frequency of pack replacement (Bradley et al ) and individual traits of wolves recolonizing vacant territories (Bjorge and Gunson ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Stable pack abundance and distribution in a harvested wolf population

et al. 2018

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Harvesting gray wolves (Canis lupus) could affect the abundance and distribution of packs, but the frequency of change in pack occurrence (i.e., turnover) and relative effects of harvest compared to environmental factors is unclear. We used noninvasive genetic sampling, hunter surveys, and occupancy models to evaluate the effect of harvest on occurrence and turnover of packs in a population of wolves managed with intensive harvest in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, 2012–2014. We tested 2 alternative hypotheses: the abundance and distribution of wolf packs were dynamic because of harvest or the abundance and distribution of wolf packs were generally stable regardless of harvest. We found the mean annual probability for wolf pack occupancy ranged 0.72–0.74 and the estimated distribution of wolf packs was consistent over time, 2012–2014. Our top model indicated wolf pack occupancy was positively associated with forest cover and the probability of detecting a wolf pack was positively associated with the intensity of harvest for wolves in that area. We observed frequent turnover of individuals within packs that were genetically sampled consecutive years but not of entire packs. Because turnover of packs occurred infrequently during our study, we could not reject our hypothesis that occurrence of packs was generally stable in a harvested population of wolves. Our results suggest environmental factors have a stronger effect than harvest on the abundance and distribution of wolf packs in southwestern Alberta, but harvest appears to strongly influence turnover of individuals within packs. We hypothesize local dispersal from within the study area and neighboring packs on the periphery of the study area helped promote pack stability. © 2018 The Wildlife Society.

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Effectiveness of Lethal, Directed Wolf‐Depredation Control in Minnesota

Cited by 45 publications

References 11 publications

Effectiveness of contemporary techniques for reducing livestock depredations by large carnivores

Effectiveness of contemporary techniques for reducing livestock depredations by large carnivores

Wolf body mass cline across Minnesota related to taxonomy?

Stable pack abundance and distribution in a harvested wolf population

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