Search

This paper addresses how the design of collaborative regimes influences markers of legitimacy in Swedish water- and large carnivore governance. Based on institutional analysis and statistical analy ...

In facing our greatest challenges, researchers have questioned where the ‘wild things’ will reside in the future, and large carnivores have been a primary focal area. The built environment plays a critical role in the propagation of countless species including carnivores; however, contemporary conceptualizations of human–nature relations do not satisfactorily attend to where the built environment should be placed within existing human–nature relation frameworks or how it impacts our ability to find space for carnivores. This paper fills this information gap by investigating the role of the built environment in social–ecological systems (SES), specifically wildlife and carnivore conservation. The paper unfolds in four stages: The first reviews empirical efforts to capture the relationship between human–natural–wildlife systems and the built environment. Second, using insights from the built environment literature, I argue that moving away from a common pool resource focus, decoupling wildlife and natural systems, investigating all infrastructure types and their interactions across systems, and considering the notion of hybrid systems offer pathways forward. Third, an explanation of the built environment's linkages to human and carnivore systems is undertaken to illustrate how the built environment facilitates the material and symbolic interactions through a blending of properties from human, wildlife and natural systems. Lastly, the argument is made that attending to the role of the built environment in human–wildlife relations can stimulate new research that reveals unhelpful habitual behaviour, feedbacks and barriers, and may also help explain unintended or unexplained consequences impacting human–carnivore relations not fully considered under existing frameworks. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Opracowanie podejmuje problematykę nowego, wprowadzonego mocą nowelizacji kodek-su karnego z 13 czerwca 2019 roku, przestępstwa odpłatnego przyjęcia zlecenia zabójstwa (art. 148a § 1 k.k.). Nie ulega wątpliwości, że jest to rozwiązanie bezprecedensowe, nadające zasadzie ochrony życia i jej zakresowi zupełnie nowego znaczenia. Wyprowadza ono ochronę życia z dotychczaso-wych ram zachowań zabronionych chroniących to dobro, przesuwając ją na płaszczyznę zachowań, które nigdy dotąd nie były karalne, bardzo oddalonych od wystąpienia zamierzonego przez sprawcę skutku. Przestępstwo to, na co zwrócono uwagę już w toku prac nad nowelizacją ustawy karnej w licznych opiniach formułowanych przez przedstawicieli środowiska karnistycznego, budzi wiele wątpliwości, w tym takie, które wiążą się z poszanowaniem przez tę ustawową konstrukcji funda-mentalnych zasad prawa karnego. Kryminalizacja zachowań na tak odległym przedpolu naruszenia dobra prawnego może być w szczególności źródłem kontrowersji w kontekście gwarancyjnej funkcji prawa karnego. Przeprowadzona analiza ma na celu zwrócenie uwagi na kilka najistotniejszych kwestii dotyczących tego przestępstwa, między innymi jego charakteru prawnego, uzasadnienia jego typizacji, konstrukcji jego ustawowych znamion, możliwych przypadków zbiegu przepisów czy przestępstw, w których może pozostawać, trudności, jakie nowa konstrukcja może nieść dla praktyki wymiaru sprawiedliwości, a także samej potrzeby wprowadzenia omawianej „modyfikacji granic” prawnokarnej ochrony życia człowieka.

In the policy sciences, the intractability of disputes in natural resource governance is commonly explained in terms of a “devil shift” between rival policy coalitions. In a devil shift, policy actors overestimate the power of their opponents and exaggerate the differences between their own and their opponents’ policy beliefs. While the devil shift is widely recognized in policy research, knowledge of its causes and solutions remains limited. Drawing insights from the advocacy coalition framework and social identity theory, we empirically explore beliefs and social identity as two potential drivers of the devil shift. Next, we investigate the potential of collaborative venues to decrease the devil shift over time. These assumptions are tested through statistical analyses of longitudinal survey data targeting actors involved in three policy subsystems within Swedish large carnivore management. Our evidence shows, first, that the devil shift is more pronounced if coalitions are defined by shared beliefs rather than by shared identity. Second, our study shows that participation in collaborative venues does not reduce the devil shift over time. We end by proposing methodological and theoretical steps to advance knowledge of the devil shift in contested policy subsystems.

We use comparable 2005 and 2018 population data to assess threats driving the decline of lion Panthera leo populations, and review information on threats structured by problem tree and root cause analysis. We define 11 threats and rank their severity and prevalence. Two threats emerged as affecting both the number of lion populations and numbers within them: livestock depredation leading to retaliatory killing of lions, and bushmeat poaching leading to prey depletion. Our data do not allow determination of whether any specific threat drives declines faster than others. Of 20 local extirpations, most were associated with armed conflicts as a driver of proximate threats. We discuss the prevalence and severity of proximate threats and their drivers, to identify priorities for more effective conservation of lions, other carnivores and their prey.

Occupancy‐based monitoring has become an important tool in wildlife conservation and management. Nonetheless, meeting occupancy modeling assumptions and providing biologically accurate information are difficult tasks over long time periods, large areas, or when monitoring multiple species. In occupancy modeling frameworks, derived grids are commonly used to divide landscapes into discrete units. Grid sizes that match the home range size of the species of interest are considered optimal, but this practice is complicated as home range size may vary by sex, habitat quality, or among species. Additionally, studies often assume their survey methods sample an entire grid cell when the actual effective sampling area may be much smaller. The effect of reduced effective sampling area on occupancy estimation has received little attention to date, despite being flagged as a critical issue. In this study, we assessed (1) how the relationship between effective area, home range size, and grid size affects power to detect trends in occupancy; (2) how varying the sampling design factors of effective area, duration, detection probability, and resurvey interval influence monitoring efficiency; and (3) determine whether a single sampling design can simultaneously detect declines in two species with different home range sizes. We used a spatially explicit simulation framework to create biologically realistic declining populations over 10 yr and assessed statistical power to detect known declines using occupancy modeling. We found that effective area and detection probability had the greatest influence on statistical power. We could not reliably detect declines when detection probability was low or when effective sampling area was 25% of the landscape, ≥25% effective area, and fixed sampling locations. Further, increasing resampling interval greatly increased monitoring efficiency. Our results show monitoring planning requires explicit consideration of effective sampling area and methods with sufficient detectability to detect population declines.

Conflict with humans is one of the primary reasons why large carnivore populations are declining worldwide. Rates of human‐carnivore conflict (HCC) are particularly high in East Africa, where human settlements tend to surround protected areas, maximizing potential for human‐carnivore interactions. Despite extensive HCC research in this region, HCC persists and carnivore populations continue to decline. Evident disconnects between HCC research and conservation action, management practices and policy formation have been cited as mechanisms associated with these trends. We conducted a literature review to determine the extent to which HCC research in East Africa is actionable within the context of management and policy formation. We evaluated 36 papers for co‐production, interdisciplinary collaboration, applied or theoretical publication and stakeholder engagement. Many were published by co‐authors in academia (63.8%) and collaborative efforts between academics and non‐governmental organizations (25.0%), with limited representation outside these sectors. Collaboration with disciplines outside the natural sciences, specifically the social and political sciences (both 2.8%), was also uncommon although humans were the primary topic of study in 28% of papers. Moreover, while many papers were published in applied journals (86%), few explicitly stated policy and management objectives. Stakeholder engagement was mostly in the form of surveys and questionnaires rather than direct involvement in the research process. Our review indicates that HCC research currently lacks strong evidence of actionability and we provide recommendations for improving the practical salience of conservation research.

1. Interspecific competition is an important evolutionary force, influencing interactions between species and shaping the composition of communities. In mammalian carnivores, to reduce the risks of negative encounters between competitors, species can employ a strategy of temporal partitioning, adapting activity patterns to limit synchronous activity. This strategy of non-human competitor avoidance, however, may be influenced by the expansion of human activities, which has driven wildlife towards nocturnality.\ud \ud 2. Therefore, it could be hypothesised that the disruption of temporal niche partitioning by humans and their activities could increase temporal overlap between carnivores, enhancing interspecific competition.\ud \ud 3. We reviewed the published literature systematically, and employed generalized linear models to quantitatively evaluate the relative influence of a range of human, meteorological and ecological variables on the coefficients of temporal overlap within carnivore communities on a global scale.\ud \ud 4. None of the models investigated showed evidence of an impact of humans on temporal partitioning between carnivores on a global scale. This illustrates that temporal avoidance of humans and competitors does not always follow a consistent pattern, and that its strength may be context-dependent and relative to other dimensions of niche partitioning (spatial and trophic).\ud \ud 5. Similarly, the regulation of activity patterns may be under strong site-specificity, and be influenced by a combination of biotic and abiotic characteristics. Temporal avoidance of both humans and competitors may be regulated by short, reactive responses that do not impact activity patterns in the longer term.\ud \ud 6. Although we did not detect a global disruption of temporal partitioning due to human disturbance, carnivore communities may still experience an increase in interspecific competition in other niche dimensions. Further research would benefit from using controlled experimental designs and investigating multiple dimensions of niche partitioning simultaneously. Finally, we recommend complementing the coefficient of temporal overlap with other metrics of fine-scale spatiotemporal interactions.

A.B.L. was supported by a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación grant (IJCI-2017-31419) from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; J.V.L.B. by a Ramón & Cajal research contract (RYC-2015-18932) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (…), Cimatti, M., Ranc, N., Benítez-López, A., Maiorano, L., Boitani, L., Cagnacci, F., Čengić, M., Ciucci, P., Huijbregts, M.A.J., Krofel, M., López-Bao, J.V., Selva, N., Andren, H., Bautista, C., Ćirović, D., Hemmingmoore, H., Reinhardt, I., Marenče, M., Mertzanis, Y., Pedrotti, L., Trbojević, I., Zetterberg, A., Zwijacz-Kozica, T., Santini, L.

Funding: African Institute for Conservation Ecology; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Grant Numbers: PD/BD/114037/2015, UID/BIA/00329/2019; National Geographic Society. Grant Number: EC-314R-18; Wild Tomorrow Fund; South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement. Grant Number: UID: 107099&115040. 1 Conservation efforts in South Africa play out across multi-use landscapes where formal protected areas coexist with private wildlife business (ecotourism and/or hunting) in a human-dominated matrix. Despite the persistence of highly diverse carnivore guilds, management idiosyncrasies are often orientated towards charismatic large predators and assemblage-level patterns remain largely unexplored. 2. We conducted an extensive camera-trap survey in a natural quasi-experimental setting in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We sampled across a protection gradient characterized by a provincial protected area (highest and formal protection status), a private ecotourism reserve, game ranches and traditional communal areas (lowest protected status). We evaluated assemblage-level and species-specific responses of free-ranging carnivores to the varying management contexts and associated environmental gradients. 3. Despite similar assemblage composition between management contexts, site-scale carnivore richness and occupancy rates were greater in the formal protected area than adjacent private reserve and game ranches. Carnivore occupancy was more similar between these private wildlife areas, although putative problem species were more common in the private reserve, and contrasted with depauperate assemblages in least protected communal lands. Variation in carnivore occupancy probabilities was largely driven by land use contexts, that is, the level and nature of protection, relative to underlying fine-scale landscape attributes (e.g. distance to conservation fences) or apex predator populations. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our findings provide convincing empirical support for the added value of multi-tenure conservation estates augmenting and connecting South Africa's protected areas. However, our emphasis on free-ranging carnivores exemplifies the importance of maintaining areas under long-term formal protection and the risks with viewing lucrative wildlife business as a conservation panacea. We suggest that unmanaged carnivore species be the formal components of carnivore reintroduction and recovery programmes to better gauge the complementary conservation role of South Africa's private land. Postprint

Human–wildlife interactions occur when humans and wildlife overlap in the same landscapes. Due to the growing human population, the number of interactions will continue to increase, and in some cases, develop further into social conflicts. Conflicts may occur between people disagreeing about wildlife conservation or arguing over which wildlife management measures should be taken. Social conflicts between humans are based on different attitudes, values and land‐use aspirations. The success of solving these social conflicts strongly depends on building trust between the public, stakeholders, authorities and researchers, as trust is fundamental to all communication and dialogue. Here we have examined how trust in large carnivore research differs within a geographically stratified sample of the Norwegian population. The comprehensive survey, including 2,110 respondents, allows us to explore how people perceive factual statements about large carnivores depending on the source of these statements. Specifically, the respondents were given multiple statements and asked to judge them in terms of meaning and authenticity depending on whether the statements were made by a politician, the Norwegian farmers' association, the Norwegian Fish and Game association or a large carnivore researcher. Based on the variations in perceptions, we inferred that trust in large carnivore researchers and their research results varied with people's attitudes, values and direct experience of large carnivores. In general, respondents perceived 60% of the statements to be genuine when given no information of who had made them. Although this increased to 75% when informed that the statements were made by a large carnivore researcher, there was still a 25% probability that the statement was perceived as manipulative or political. Age, environmental values and negative experiences of carnivores increased the probability of perceiving research statements as manipulative or political. People living in areas with high proportions of hunters showed particularly polarized views, either more strongly perceiving the statements as political, or in contrast as research. This study provides a novel perspective in understanding the role trust plays in social conflicts related to human–wildlife interactions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

ispartof: Frontiers In Ecology And Evolution vol:8 issue:10 status: published

Promoting co-existence between humans and their physical and ecological environment, including wildlife, has been given an increased importance due to a recent shift of society to become environmentally sustainable. However, humans and large carnivores have been in conflict throughout history. One of the most prominent reasons for this conflict is damages to livestock and domestic animals. Population reduction or even local eradication has often been used as a damage mitigation strategy. However, number of carnivore damages need to be positively related to carnivore densities for population reduction to be an effective damage limitation tool. Sweden is a country in northern Europe with frequent human-carnivore conflicts, spurred by an intense and polarized public debate. We use a 20-year data set on brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolf (Canis lupus) and their damages in Sweden to evaluate if temporal variation in carnivore densities has caused an equivalent variation in the number of damages to cattle, sheep and domestic dogs, if such relationships differed between the carnivore species and damage types, and if there were geographic scale dependencies in these relationships. We observed contradictory effects of large carnivore densities on damages, which included both positive and negative effects. Differences occurred between carnivore species, damage types, geographic areas, and spatial scales. However, wolf densities appeared to have been positively related to the number of damages more often than bear and lynx densities. Our results highlight that large carnivore damages can be highly context dependent, and that other factors than the size of local or regional carnivore populations may be more important damage determinants. Such an interpretation implies that population reduction may not necessarily be an effective method for limiting large carnivore damages, and highlight that damage mitigation strategies need to be flexible over time and space. We recommend further studies identifying the contexts in which large carnivore densities influence damages to livestock and domestic animals, as well as studies aimed at identifying other factors that may be related to the number of damages., Funding was provided by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness in Spain (grant number RYC2013-14662) and by the National Research Foundation in South Africa (grant numbers SFP2008072900003, IFR2011032400087, CPRR13081929244 and IFR150119112493).

Policy mixes (i.e. the total structure of policy processes, strategies, and instruments) are complex constructs that can quickly become incoherent, inconsistent, and incomprehensive. This is amplified when the policy mix strives to meet multiple objectives simultaneously, such as in the case of large carnivore policy mixes. Building on Rogge and Reichardt's analytical framework for the analysis of policy mixes, we compare the policy mixes of Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany (specifically Saxony and Bavaria), and Spain (specifically Castilla y Leon). The study shows that the large carnivore policy mixes in the case countries show signs of lacking vertical and horizontal coherence in the design of policy processes, weak consistency between objectives and designated policy instruments, and, as a consequence, lacking comprehensiveness. We conclude that creating consistent, coherent, and comprehensive policy mixes that build on multiple objectives requires stepping away from sectorized policy development, toward a holistic, systemic approach, strong collaborative structures across policy boundaries and regions, the inclusion of diverse stakeholders, and constant care and attention to address all objectives simultaneously rather than in isolation.

The legitimacy of large carnivore institutions to exercise truth-making power is assumed by constituents and other audiences. This study examines the power of language in shaping resistance to hegemonic truths about red wolf recovery in North Carolina. We conducted a critical discourse analysis of seven corpora produced by a discourse coalition comprising local, state, and federal actors. We demonstrate that these actors held seven cognitive interpretive repertoires in common (positioning; causality; contrariety; fatalist; falsifiability; victim; and big bad wolf). Findings indicate that repertoires influenced red wolf governance processes, reversed the risk narrative concerning recovery, split cognitive authority over red wolves in the public sphere, and set new, paradoxical limits for scientific inquiry. This study reinforces that language is power and, therefore, language is also legitimation. We conclude that researchers, citizens, and decision makers must attend to the ways in which language control contributes to legitimacy deficits through coordinated resistance.

Human–carnivore conflict (HCC) represents one of the greatest threats to rural livelihoods and the persistence of large carnivores. The application of aversive conditioning, the association of unpleasant stimuli with the occurrence of unwanted behaviors, to mitigate HCC has achieved mixed results within and across species, making a better understanding of the factors driving intervention success critical to inform management practices. We explored the degree to which the chasing of African lions (Panthera leo) out of no tolerance zones conditions lion behavior to reduce their rate of return into community lands or rate of repeated livestock killing, providing evidence‐based understanding of program outcomes. We used data from 15 global positioning system (GPS)‐collared lions adjacent to Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, with each lion receiving 0–17 conditioning treatments, and analyzed the data using recurrent event survival analysis and logistic regression. Chases were most successful (i.e., lion pushed out of the no tolerance zone by sunrise of the following day) in the dry season (i.e., when wild prey were more predictable), in areas closer to the park, and for individuals from smaller and more stable prides (i.e., had not lost a pride male within six months). Adult females and subadult males were more likely than adult males to reenter community lands, and subadult males were most likely to repeatedly depredate livestock. While livestock depredation has decreased since program initiation, the individuals in this study were overall not less likely to enter community lands or depredate livestock in response to chases when chases were considered isolated events. Rather, it was the consistency of deterrence events that proved most important in reducing livestock depredations, likely because of a stronger reinforcement between the undesired behavior and the negative stimulus. However, lions that had previously habitually killed livestock had greater depredation rates even after several conditioning treatments. Aversive conditioning holds promise in the management of carnivores that depredate livestock, but intervention must be consistent, ideally early in the development of problem behaviors, to maximize intervention effectiveness. Methods that separate wildlife from people (i.e., fencing, livestock enclosure fortification), in combination with aversive conditioning, may be needed to provide a sustainable, long‐term solution.

Floral and faunal biodiversity are jeopardized by a number of ecological, environmental, and anthropogenic factors. Increasingly however, an evident disconnect between the science and policy spheres problematizes efforts to conserve biodiversity. One of the issues that informs this research-implementation gap is discordance among the scales at which: i) the research objective is devised, ii) the data are collected, and iii) the inferences are applied. This issue might be influential among human-carnivore conflict research where applied results are intended to optimize the implementation of interventionist activities. Using human-lion (Panthera leo) conflict research as a novel case study, we reviewed papers studying patterns of conflict from 1990 to 2016. Despite the fact that the majority (70.5%, 62 of 88) of these papers devised their research objectives at broad spatial scales (i.e., either landscape or regional), most (64.8%, 57 of 88) envisioned their inferences at fine scales (i.e., either household or community). Mismatches between the coarsest reported scale of data collection and the finest reported scale of inference were also evident. For instance, 24 of 79 papers (30.4%) had potentially problematic mismatches given that the scale of inference was at a finer scale than the scale of data collection. We infer that scale discordance in human-lion conflict research is common and derives, in part, from the lack of fine-scale geospatial data describing the systems in which humans and lions interact. Efforts to develop more resolute geospatial libraries across biodiverse regions will help to make conservation research more effectual by narrowing the research-implementation gap. One sentence summary Discordance between the scale of data collection and the scale of prediction problematize efforts to devise interventions for human-carnivore conflict.

Large carnivore reintroductions have become commonplace in modern conservation. Despite the benefits of such initiatives, conflict with humans can jeopardize their success. Reintroductions of grey wolves (Canis lupus) in the American West are particularly polarizing, and opposing views are often popularized through visual media. We examined public billboards, both for and against wolves, in eastern Washington State. We used social science concepts—framing, affect, and the psychology of advertising—to assess the billboards’ role in the wolf debate. We analyzed visual imagery, traced frames in newspaper articles, and conducted interviews with local stakeholders. Our results showed that the billboards attracted attention to the issue and increased tension within the debate. However, they were limited in their ability to stimulate engagement due to a discrepancy between their structure and intended impacts. Results suggested the necessity for careful selection of campaign techniques and focused alignm...

Carnivore conservationists agree that addressing the socioeconomic needs of people is critical to human-carnivore conflict mitigation. We therefore welcome studies that encompass complex social and cultural factors that affect the severity of human-carnivore conflict on Namibian farmlands. However, we contend that the recent study by Rust et al. (2016) was poorly designed, used inappropriate sampling methods, lacked quantitative information on their qualitative results, and ultimately produced unsupported conclusions about the role of historic apartheid and current racism in exacerbating human-carnivore conflict in Namibia. We outline our concerns regarding the methods used, and demonstrate that the conclusions drawn by Rust et al. were not supported by their data.

Connection with a zoo animal may increase conservation-mindedness in zoo visitors, potentially resulting in conservation-oriented behavior change. No research has attempted to establish what this "connection" actually means. Visitors (N = 85) to Melbourne Zoo were asked to name the animal with which they most connected, the extent to which they connected with it, and to qualitatively describe what it meant to connect with that animal. Many (but not all) participants connected with charismatic megafauna: primate, great ape, large carnivore, or large herbivore. Qualitative analysis revealed five common themes in the meaning of connection: Appreciation, Attribution, Inspires Emotions, Interaction, and Proximity. Overall connection level was significantly correlated with perceptions of conservation caring for the chosen species. Future research should aim to determine what factors affect a zoo visitor's connection level, which could impact attitudes and behaviors toward conservation.

Accurate analyses of the diets of predators are key to understand trophic interactions and defining conservation strategies. Diets are commonly assessed through analysis of non‐invasively collected scats, and the use of faecal DNA (fDNA ) analysis can reduce the species misidentifications that could lead to biased ecological inference. We review the scientific literature since publication of the first paper on amplifying fDNA , in order to assess trends in the use of genetic non‐invasive sampling (gNIS ) for predator species identification in scat‐based diet studies of North American and European terrestrial mammalian carnivores (Carnivora). We quantify error rates in morphology‐based predator species identification. We then provide an overview of how applying gNIS would improve research on trophic interactions and other areas of carnivore ecology. We found that carnivore species identity was verified by using gNIS in only 8% of 400 studies of carnivore diets based on scats. The median percentage of false positives (i.e. samples wrongly identified as belonging to the target species) in morphology‐based studies was 18%, and was consistent regardless of species’ body size. We did not find an increasing trend in the use of gNIS over time, despite the existing technical capability to identify almost all carnivore species. New directions for fDNA studies include employing high‐throughput sequencing (HTS ) and DNA metabarcoding to identify the predator species, the individual predator, the entire assemblage of consumed items, and the microbiome of the predator and pathogens. We conclude that HTS protocols and metagenomic approaches hold great promise for elevating gNIS as a fundamental cornerstone for future research in ecology and conservation biology of mammals., PM enjoyed a postdoctoral fellowship funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology (UID/BIA/50027/2013 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006821). RG was supported by a research contract from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (IF/564/2012). The University of Idaho, USA, provided salary support for LW. The Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD) provided travel funding between the University of Porto, Portugal, and the University of Montana, USA.

Modern day investigation in fields of archaeology and palaeontology can be greatly characterised by an exponential growth of integrated new technologies, nevertheless, while these advances are of great significance to multiple lines of research, their evaluation and update over time is equally as important. Here we present an application of inter and intra-observer analysis in taphonomy based geometric morphometrics, employing robust non-parametric statistical analyses for the study of experimental carnivore tooth pit morphologies. To fully understand the influence of measurement errors in the collection of this data, our statistical assessment was performed on fully superimposed, partially superimposed and raw landmark coordinates collected from 3D surface scanning. Experimental samples used to assess these errors includes wolf and dog tooth pits used in modern day ecological livestock predation analysis. Results obtained from this study highlight the importance of landmark type in the assessment of error, emphasising the value of semi-landmark models over the use of ambiguous Type III landmarks. In addition to this, data also reveals the importance of observer experience for the collection of data alongside an interesting increase in error when working with fully superimposed landmarks due to the “Pinocchio Effect”. Through this study we are able to redefine the geometric morphometric models used for tooth pit morphological analyses. This final hybrid Type II fixed landmark and semi-landmark model presents a significant reduction in human induced error, generating a more metrically reliable and replicable method that can be used for data pooling in future inter-institutional research. These results can be considered a fundamental step forward for carnivore inspired studies, having an impact on archaeological, palaeontological, modern-day ecological research as well as applications in other forensic sciences., L.A.C. is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities with a FPI Predoctoral Grant (Ref. PRE2019-089411) associated to project RTI2018-099850-B-I00 and the University of Salamanca. R.H. is supported by MICINNFEDER PGC2018-093925-B-C32, the AGUAR project number SGR 2017-1040; the Universitat Rovira I Virgili (2014, 2015 and 2016 PFR-URV-B2-147) and CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. D.H.R. is supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, under the contract REF: PEJ2019-005420-A as part of the i+D+I Garantía Juvenil. Finally L.A.C., M.Á.M.G and D.G.A. are supported by the General Foundation of the University of Salamanca under the Plan TCUE 2018-2020; Project “WOLF_FOOTPRINT” (PC-TCUE18-20_2013).

This patient vignette explores a Vietnam Veteran's effort to reverse atherosclerotic heart disease. In the process, he experiences the reversal of the dietary preference most central to his identity in three weeks.

The Publisher would like to correct the introduced formatting errors on the caption of Figure 1 and in the data in Table 2.

In this article, we investigate whether increased participation offers a way of addressing wicked policy problems. We utilize a natural policy experiment in the form of a 2010 reform of Swedish wildlife management policy aiming to solve longstanding conflicts over predators through increased stakeholder participation in regional Wildlife Management Boards. Using a panel study design containing quantitative and qualitative data, we estimate pre- and post-reform levels of three wickedness-reducing mechanisms: legitimacy, deliberation, and conflict intensity. Despite a substantial increase in participation, we find no evidence of reduced wickedness after the reform.

Granting legal protection to an endangered species has long been considered a major milestone for its conservation and recovery. A multitude of examples such as wolves in the contiguous USA (Boitani 2003) or many large carnivore populations in Europe (Chapron et al. 2014) have revealed how instrumental wildlife protection laws can be for species recovery. However, legal obligations to conserve endangered species may be useless if the rule of law is not properly enforced. Such situation is not exclusive to countries with political instability or weak institutional capacities but can also be relevant, for instance, to member states of the European Union and therefore bound to European legislation on nature conservation.

This paper provides the first in-depth exploration of tiger killing behaviour in communities bordering the Sundarbans mangrove forest, Bangladesh. Our findings demonstrate the complexity of carnivore killing behaviour in situations of human–wildlife conflict. We find that killings are not purely retaliatory in nature (i.e. driven by a desire for retribution following livestock depredation or attacks on humans by tigers), and that previous negative experience of tigers is not the sole determinant of villagers’ acceptance of killing behaviour. Inter-related socio-psychological factors (risk perceptions, beliefs about tigers and the people that kill tigers, general attitude towards tigers), perceived failings on the part of local authorities whom villagers believe should resolve village tiger incidents, perceived personal rewards (financial rewards, enhanced social status, medicinal or protective value of tiger body parts), and contextual factors (the severity and location of tiger incidents) motivate people to kill tigers when they enter villages and foster the widespread acceptance of this behaviour. The complexity of these factors highlights the need for conservation practitioners to explore and understand people’s motivations for killing endangered carnivore species, in order to address better the community-led killing of these animals. For the Sundarbans area, knowledge of these motivational factors can be used to develop conservation actions suitable for developing both communities’ capacity and, crucially, desire to co-exist with tigers and to respond with non-lethal action to village tiger incidents.

As wolf populations expand across Europe, many countries face challenges in finding ways to address the concerns of some elements among the rural stakeholders who are being asked to share their landscapes with wolves for the first time in several generations. In these recovery landscapes, wolves are associated with a wide range of conflicts that include economic, psychological, perceptional, social, cultural and political dimensions. A recurring demand concerns the desire to introduce the use of carefully regulated lethal control of wolves, through either culling by state employees or hunting conducted by rural hunters. Introducing such measures can be very controversial, and many critics challenge their legality under the international wildlife conservation instruments that have nurtured wolf recovery. We evaluate this issue for the case of wolves in Norway, which are strictly protected under the Bern Convention. Drawing on the latest results of social science research, we present the multiple lines of argumentation that are often used to justify killing wolves and relate these to the criteria for exceptions that exist under the Bern Convention. We conclude that while the Convention provides apparent scope for allowing the killing of wolves as a means to address conflicts, this must be clearly justified and proportional to the conservation status of wolves so as to not endanger their recovery.

Scientific Reports 6: Article number: 20552; published online: 03 February 2016; updated: 28 March 2017 This corrigendum aims to correct errors detected in the outputs of the Extended Data Tables from our article Scientific Reports 6, 20552 (2016). A mistake occurred due to a failure in the conversion of the variable “species” from integer to a categorical (factor) variable.

In Finland, the conservation of large mammalian carnivores—brown bear, lynx, wolf and wolverine—is undermined by illegal killings that have commonly taken place after the implementation of national carnivore management plans. This hidden form of criminality cannot occur to such an extent without strong support from the local community. We examined the support of proximate groups by collecting data from hunters and women. In collecting data, we used non-active role playing with empathy-based fictitious stories. We used argumentation analysis to reveal the assumed species, the background of the illegal killing and especially the justifications and importance of community support for illegal killing. The results show that we have a conflict with strong basic emotions in hand as both illegal killing and support for illegal killing and hunting violators are based on anger and fear for children and domestic animals as well as frustration toward the authorities and the lack of proper management actions. The wolf is at the centre of the conflict due to the specific character of the species. Current policies have inevitably been lacking in terms of place-based policy, and that has led to conflicts between game management authorities/researchers and ordinary citizens. To facilitate a change in attitudes, we suggest focusing on affective factors via confidence-building measures.

Adaptive co-management (ACM) is a key concept in science and an increasingly adopted policy response in conservation, associated with a number of positive outcomes. However, the effects and mechanisms of co-management arrangements, including the conditions under which ACM gives rise to higher levels of internal and external legitimacy, are yet to be explored. This endeavor, in turn, requires theoretically driven models providing assumptions and outlining testable hypotheses. Considering the social challenges of ACM and using an institutional change within the Swedish carnivore management system aimed at achieving legitimacy through co-management as an illustrative example, this article develops a conceptual model that encompasses conditions and possible explanations to ACM outcomes. More specifically, drawing on lessons from social theory, we model the impact of three key factors—social networks, deliberation and learning—on the external and internal legitimacy resulting from ACM arrangements. Based on the model proposed, the popular assumptions of ACM outcomes can thus be empirically scrutinized and the conditions for increased legitimacy through ACM arrangements better comprehended.

I loved seeing the editorial title ‘Is the end of eating meat in sight?’ (VR, 15 June 2019, vol 184, p 725). Although I see an endless stream of memes and articles on social media foreseeing the end of the carnivore age (perhaps down to targeted ads), I did not …

Carnivore is a surveillance technology, a software program housed in a computer unit, which is installed by properly authorized FBI agents on a particular Internet Service Provider's (ISP) network. The Carnivore software system is used together with a tap on the ISP's network to “intercept, filter, seize and decipher digital communications on the Internet”. The system is described as a “specialized network analyzer” that works by “sniffing” a network and copying and storing a warranted subset of its traffic. In the FBI's own words “Carnivore chews on all data on the network, but it only actually eats the information authorized by a court order”. This article, in two parts, provides an overview of the FBI's Carnivore electronic surveillance system.

The present study examined the feasibility of experimentally manipulating perceptions of benefit and control via communications to increase public acceptance of bears. We assigned subjects to either a pseudo-control (basic bear biology message) or 1 of 3 treatments adding a benefits message, a perceived control message, or combining messages about both benefits and perceived control. Within-subjects pre–post t-tests showed a significant increase in acceptance among those in the benefits and combined treatments. A between-subjects 1-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a significant difference between the perceived control and combined treatments (where the perceived control message actually decreased acceptance). Our results highlight the importance of including information about benefits stemming from the presence of black bears, as adding this information tended to increase stakeholder acceptance of black bear populations. © 2013 The Wildlife Society.

The 15th North American Caribou Workshop (NACW) was held from 12-16 May 2014, in the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council, in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. This biennial meeting is the largest technical conference of its kind dealing specifically with caribou biology and management. The first NACW was held in Whitehorse over three decades ago in 1983, and 13 subsequent workshops have been held across North America until now. With nearly 400 delegates from Canada, the United States, Norway, and Greenland attending the 2014 conference, it is evident that this “North American” gathering has truly become an international event. Furthermore, delegates attending this 15th NACW represented federal, provincial, territorial, state and First Nation governments, academia, non-governmental organizations, co-management boards and councils, private consultants, and industry, creating a relatively unique conference setting bringing together a variety of perspectives and concerns. The breadth of the participants in terms of geography, expertise and affiliation resulted in a rich base of human capacity to discuss issues related to caribou conservation and management.Given that it had been nearly three decades since the inception of this workshop, and with its return to the location of the first NACW, the organizing committee felt it was a fitting opportunity to look back and assess what had been achieved with respect to caribou conservation and management. As such, the theme of the 15th NACW was “Caribou Conservation and Management: What’s Working?” The opening session of the conference focussed on invited presentations explicitly addressing this question, and included topics on structured decision making, forest management, harvest monitoring, carnivore management, regional land use planning and management, and aboriginal perspectives on a long-term collaborative caribou recovery program in the southwest Yukon. We challenged our speakers to share what was working and why, and the information provided was valuable and timely, prompting many questions and discussion throughout the conference.

This paper aims to fill the gap in the literature about distributional impacts (who wins and who loses) of implementing new management plans for non-market priced environmental goods and services. ...