Quota hunting of Eurasian lynx in Norway: patterns of hunter selection, hunter efficiency and monitoring accuracy

Abstract

Harvesting large carnivores is often a controversial issue and thus requires a higher precision than other types of recreational harvest. Despite this, management programmes are often initiated based on very limited knowledge about the state of the population and the composition and magnitude of the harvest. Here we analyse patterns of lynx harvest in Norway based on harvest data from 1994 to 2009. We found clear signs of sex-biased harvest rates, with males generally being more at risk. Further, harvest mortality rates increased with age among males but not among females. In general, the degree of quota filling was high, but there was a tendency for decreasing quota filling with increasing quotas. A population reconstruction of the Norwegian lynx population (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) based on a modified cohort analysis closely tracked the development in the official monitoring data, suggesting that the managers have access to relatively good information about the development of the population, at least at a larger spatial scale. Despite this, the population trajectory showed large temporal variation, and time lags in the management's decision-making process are a likely cause of the observed patterns in the Norwegian lynx population.

Eurasian lynx habitat selection in human-modified landscape in Norway: Effects of different human habitat modifications and behavioral states

“…Just because lynx can use an area does not automatically imply that their population has a positive or stable trend (Stapleton et al, 2014), and indeed our earlier work has shown that lynx are more vulnerable to being shot in areas with higher road densities (Basille et al, 2013). However, most lynx mortality in Norway is due to legal hunter harvest (Andrén et al, 2006) which is regulated within an adaptive management system with annual monitoring and quota setting (Linnell et al, 2010;Nilsen et al, 2012) implying that the fate of lynx in the study region is amenable to management control. Results such as these are important to frame the large carnivore conservation discourse because they show that there is no automatic connection between lynx and wilderness .…”

The role of predation and food limitation on claims for compensation, reindeer demography and population dynamics

“…Reconstructions of population size of lynx (Nilsen et al . ) and genetic capture–mark–recapture of wolverine (Brøseth et al . ), however, reveal that the national monitoring programme of lynx family groups and wolverine reproductions reflect population sizes well.…”

Harvest models of small populations of a large carnivore using Bayesian forecasting

“…The quota decision‐making is also highly relevant for lynx management, as the level of quota filling in the annual lynx harvest is high in the study area, on average 80% and 77% of the quota is filled in northern Sweden and Norway (Nilsen et al. , Bischof et al. ).…”

“…Nilsen et al. () found a good fit ( r = 0.84) between monitored population size and reconstructed population size for Norway. Thus, the lynx monitoring provides an index of all lynx in an area.…”