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Survival and cause-specific mortality rates are vital for evidence-based population forecasting and conservation, particularly for large carnivores, whose populations are often vulnerable to human-caused mortalities. It is therefore important to know the relationship between anthropogenic and natural mortality causes to evaluate whether they are additive or compensatory. Further, the relation between survival and environmental covariates could reveal whether specific landscape characteristics influence demographic performance. We used telemetry data on 681 Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), a model apex predator with large spatial requirements, that were tracked across their European distribution. Through time-to-event analyses, we sought to determine the variables associated with differences in their survival. Illegal killing was the main cause of mortality (33.8%), and mortality rates were similar in protected and hunted populations (8.6% and 7.0% per year, respectively). Survival varied greatly across populations (70-95% per year). Across all study sites, higher hunting and anthropogenic mortality rates were partially compensated by lower rates of other mortality causes but not by natural mortality alone. Variation in survival depended on sex (female survival was 1.5 times greater than male survival) and seasonality (highest risk during hunting season and winter), and lower survival rates were correlated with higher human modification of landscapes at both coarse (home range composition) and fine (habitat use within home range) scales. Some variation in survival was driven by unobserved factors, which, given the high rates of human-caused mortalities, including illegal killing, are of foremost concern. Due to the low natural mortality rates in protected and hunted populations, we conclude that anthropogenic causes of mortality are likely close to additive, such that maintaining or increasing refuge habitat with little human disturbance is critical to lynx conservation., (© 2025 The Author(s). Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

The estimation of foraging parameters is fundamental for understanding predator ecology. Predation and feeding can vary with multiple factors, such as prey availability, presence of kleptoparasites and human disturbance. However, our knowledge is mostly limited to local scales, which prevents studying effects of environmental factors across larger ecological gradients. Here, we compared inter-kill intervals and handling times of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) across a large latitudinal gradient, from subarctic to the Mediterranean ecosystems, using a standardised dataset of predicted adult ungulate kills from 107 GPS-collared lynx from nine distinct populations in Europe. We analysed variations in these two foraging parameters in relation to proxies reflecting prey availability, scavengers' presence and human disturbance, to improve our understanding of lynx predation at a continental scale. We found that inter-kill intervals and handling times varied between populations, social status and in different seasons within the year. We observed marked differences in inter-kill intervals between populations, which do not appear to be driven by variation in handling time. Increases in habitat productivity (expressed by NDVI, used as a proxy for prey availability) resulted in reduced inter-kill intervals (i.e. higher kill rates). We observed less variation in handling (i.e. feeding) times, although presence of dominant scavengers (wild boars and brown bears) and higher human impact led to significantly shorter handling times. This suggests that kleptoparasitism and human disturbance may limit the energetic input that lynx can obtain from their prey. We also observed that the human impact on foraging parameters can be consistent between some populations but context-dependent for others, suggesting local adaptations by lynx. Our study highlights the value of large-scale studies based on standardised datasets, which can aid the implementation of effective management measures, as patterns observed in one area might not be necessarily transferable to other regions. Our results also indicate the high degree of adaptability of these solitary felids, which enables them to meet their energy requirements and persist across a wide range of environmental conditions despite the constraints imposed by humans, dominant scavengers and variable prey availability., (© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.)

Human induced land use changes negatively impact the viability of many wildlife species through habitat modifications and mortality, while some species seem to benefit from it. Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), a wide spread ungulate increased both its abundance and range throughout Europe. This pattern is also reflected in the increasing hunting bags over the last 40 years. Such a development raises questions about the relationship between human hunting and population dynamics and, in particular, about the potential of human hunting to control related populations. We analysed and reconstructed annual hunting bags of roe deer for three federal states of northern Germany, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg West Pomerania for the years 1972 to 2011. Since 1992 the hunting bags from these three states are significantly higher than those reported for the years 1972-1991. Our reconstruction takes into consideration effects of climate variability, expressed by inter-annual changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation and impacts from rapeseed and wheat cultivation. We found that severe winters, which are indicated by negative values of the North Atlantic Oscillation during the months December-March, directly, or with a time lag of two years affect the number of deer shot. In contrast, an increase in the area used for rapeseed cultivation coincides with higher numbers of roe deer shot, with respect to the overall mean value. Consequently, we recommend that wildlife management addresses changes in large scale processes including land use pattern and climate variability., (© 2013.)