Search

Managing risk requires an adequate understanding of risk-factors that influence the likelihood of a particular event occurring in time and space. Risk maps can be valuable tools for natural resource managers, allowing them to better understand spatial characteristics of risk. Risk maps can also support risk-avoidance efforts by identifying which areas are relatively riskier than others. However, risks, such as human-carnivore conflict, can be diverse, multi-faceted, and overlapping in space. Yet, efforts to describe risk typically focus on only one aspect of risk. We examined wolf complaints investigated in Wisconsin, USA for the period of 1999-2011. We described the spatial patterns of four types of wolf-human conflict: livestock depredation, depredation on hunting hounds, depredation on non-hound dogs, and human health and safety concerns (HHSC). Using predictive landscape models and discriminant functions analysis, we visualized the landscape of risk as a continuous surface of overlapping risks. Each type of conflict had its own unique landscape signature; however, the probability of any type of conflict increased closer to the center of wolf pack territories and with increased forest cover. Hunting hound depredations tended to occur in areas considered to be highly suitable wolf habitat, while livestock depredations occurred more regularly in marginal wolf habitat. HHSC and non-hound dog depredations were less predictable spatially but tended to occur in areas with low housing density adjacent to large wildland areas. Similar to other research evaluating the risk of human-carnivore conflict, our data suggests that human-carnivore conflict is most likely to occur where humans or human property and large carnivores co-occur. However, identifying areas of co-occurrence is only marginally valuable from a conservation standpoint and could be described using spatially-explicit human and carnivore data without complex analytical approaches. These results challenge our traditional understanding of risk and the standard approach used in describing risk. We suggest that a more comprehensive understanding of the risk of human-carnivore conflict can be achieved by examining the spatial and non-spatial factors influencing risk within areas of co-occurrence and by describing the landscape of risk as a continuous surface of multiple overlapping risks., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Populations of large terrestrial carnivores are in various stages of recovery worldwide and the question of whether there is compensation in mortality sources is relevant to conservation. Here, we show variation in Wisconsin wolf survival from 1979 to 2013 by jointly estimating the hazard of wolves' radio-telemetry ending (endpoint) and endpoint cause. In previous analyses, wolves lost to radio-telemetry follow-up (collar loss) were censored from analysis, thereby assuming collar loss was unconfounded with mortality. Our approach allowed us to explicitly estimate hazard due to collar loss and did not require censoring these records from analysis. We found mean annual survival was 76% and mean annual causes of mortality were illegal killing (9.4%), natural and unknown causes (9.5%), and other human-caused mortality such as hunting, vehicle collisions and lethal control (5.1%). Illegal killing and natural mortality were highest during winter, causing wolf survival to decrease relative to summer. Mortality was highest during early recovery and lowest during a period of sustained population growth. Wolves again experienced higher risk of human-caused mortality relative to natural mortality as wolves expanded into areas with more human activity. We detected partial compensation in human- and natural-caused mortality since 2004 as the population saturated more available habitat. Prior to 2004, we detected additivity in mortality sources. Assessments of wolf survival and cause of mortality rates and the finding of partial compensation in mortality sources will inform wolf conservation and management efforts by identifying sources and sinks, finding areas of conservation need, and assessing management zone delineation.

World-wide concern over emerging vector-borne diseases has increased in recent years for both animal and human health. In the United Sates, concern about vector-borne diseases in canines has focused on Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, and heartworm which infect domestic and wild canids. Of these diseases, Lyme and anaplasmosis are also frequently diagnosed in humans. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) recolonized Wisconsin in the 1970s, and we evaluated their temporal and geographic patterns of exposure to these four vector-borne diseases in Wisconsin as the population expanded between 1985 and 2011. A high proportion of the Wisconsin wolves were exposed to the agents that cause Lyme (65.6%) and anaplasma (47.7%), and a smaller proportion to ehrlichiosis (5.7%) and infected with heartworm (9.2%). Wolf exposure to tick borne diseases was consistently higher in older animals. Wolf exposure was markedly higher than domestic dog (Canis familiaris) exposure for all 4 disease agents during 2001-2013. We found a cluster of wolf exposure to Borrelia burgdorferi in northwestern Wisconsin, which overlaps human and domestic dog clusters for the same pathogen. In addition, wolf exposure to Lyme disease in Wisconsin has increased, corresponding with the increasing human incidence of Lyme disease in a similar time period. Despite generally high prevalence of exposure none of these diseases appear to have slowed the growth of the Wisconsin wolf population., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Rapid change in wildlife populations can challenge managers to promote species conservation while maintaining public support for wildlife. Wolf management during recolonization in Wisconsin, United States demonstrates the complexities of inconsistent management authority, public attitudes, and illegal killing of wolves. State management authority to control depredating wolves oscillated during a period of intense sociopolitical conflict over wolf status under the federal Endangered Species Act. We demonstrate that swings in wolf status led to inconsistent management authority, declining local public support for wolves, and possibly the unintended backlash of more illegal kills and a legislatively mandated public wolf hunt. A new Wildlife Management Matrix illustrates an idealized relationship between lethal control options and perceptions of wildlife. Moderating the sociopolitical drivers of swings in policy over short periods is essential to allow wildlife managers greater flexibility in achieving species-specific goals. To our knowledge, this research provides the first demonstrated link between illegal wildlife killing and management authority under the Endangered Species Act, and suggests that illegal behavior may be moderated with responsible and effective wildlife management programs. We recommend states avoid prescriptive harvest legislation, and we suggest a more incremental shift from federal to state management authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioboundaries, also called biofences, are deterrents that attempt to exploit certain innate behaviors to exclude wildlife from target areas. We hypothesized that human-deployed scent marks and playbacks of foreign howls could simulate a territorial gray wolf (Canis lupus) pack impinging on a resident pack, thereby causing the resident pack to move. During summer 2010, we deployed a simulated-pack bioboundary near 3 wolf packs in northern Wisconsin and monitored their movements relative to 3 wolf packs experiencing a sham treatment, to control for effects of human presence. We analyzed wolves' locations (⩾1 location per week) and used linear models with mixed effects to examine distance from the rendezvous site as a function of treatment (sham or experimental) and phase of treatment (before or after treatment was initiated), while accounting for variations in individual wolves. We found little evidence that biofences, as configured and deployed in this study, caused wolves to change use of their territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the attempted cross-fostering of four 18-19 week old Gray Wolves pups (Canis lupus) to another pack resulting from depredation control on a farm in northwestern Wisconsin. It mentions that the four captured pups were subsequently introduced near the rendezvous site of the Bootjack Lake Pack (BJLP) for the attempted cross-fostering. It imparts that only one of the four pups has survived which was captured four years later on a depredation complaint. Additionally, it mentions that the cross-fostering attempt might have been successful if the pups are introduced to packs near their natal pack territory or placed in the BJLP pack territory earlier.

Three Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) were found dead in porcupine (Erethizon darsatum) dens in northern Wisconsin between 1996-2000. Use of these dens appeared to be cases of shelter-seeking behavior by wolves suffering from sarcoptic mange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gray wolves ( Canis lupus ) have complex life-histories due, in part, to mating systems that depend on intra-group dominance hierarchies set within an inter-group (pack) social structure linked to philopatric territories. In addition to this spatially oriented social structure, mortality risk associated with interactions with humans varies spatially. We developed an individual-based spatially explicit (IBSE) model for the southern Lake Superior wolf population to better capture the life-history of wolves in a harvest model. Simulated wolves underwent an annual cycle of life-history stage-dependent mate-finding, dispersal, reproduction, and aging on a simulated landscape reflecting spatially explicit state and water boundaries, Indian reservation boundaries and ceded territories, wolf harvest zones, livestock depredation areas, and a spatial mortality risk surface. The latter 3 surfaces were linked to mortality events for simulated wolves. We assessed our IBSE model and conducted a sensitivity analysis of the most uncertain parameters with a categorical calibration of patterns observed at the individual, pack, population, and landscape level. We found that without recreational harvest, the Wisconsin wolf population grew to an average carrying capacity of 1242 wolves after 50 years and breeding pairs persisted for a mean 1.8 years. We simulated 6 recreational harvest scenarios with varying rates and timings of harvest and assessed effects on population size, pack sizes, age ratios, dispersal and immigration rates, and breeding pair tenures of the Wisconsin wolf population. The simulated harvest with rates of 14% which corresponded to the 2012 harvest in Wisconsin reduced the populations 4% in the first year of harvest and equilibrated to the pre-harvest population size after 20 years of harvest, on average. A 30% harvest rate across the simulation on average reduced the populations by 65% after 20 years with some populations going extinct before 100 years. In general, harvest increased the proportion of pups in the simulated populations and decreased breeding pair tenure. Targeted lethal control was more effective than harvest for reducing the number of wolves near known livestock depredation sites. Our model facilitates prediction of important population patterns that is simultaneously dependent on complexities associated with spatially structured life history and mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]