The conservation of large carnivores is a formidable challenge for biodiversity conservation. Using a data set on the past and current status of brown bears (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), gray wolves (Canis lupus), and wolverines (Gulo gulo) in European countries, we show that roughly one-third of mainland Europe hosts at least one large carnivore species, with stable or increasing abundance in most cases in 21st-century records. The reasons for this overall conservation success include protective legislation, supportive public opinion, and a variety of practices making coexistence between large carnivores and people possible. The European situation reveals that large carnivores and people can share the same landscape.

Successful coexistence between large carnivores and humans is conditional upon effective mitigation of the impact of these species on humans, such as through livestock depredation. It is therefore essential for conservation practitioners, carnivore managing authorities, or livestock owners to know the effectiveness of interventions intended to reduce livestock predation by large carnivores. We reviewed the scientific literature (1990–2016), searching for evidence of the effectiveness of interventions. We found experimental and quasi-experimental studies were rare within the field, and only 21 studies applied a case-control study design (3.7% of reviewed publications). We used a relative risk ratio to evaluate the studied interventions: changing livestock type, keeping livestock in enclosures, guarding or livestock guarding dogs, predator removal, using shock collars on carnivores, sterilizing carnivores, and using visual or auditory deterrents to frighten carnivores. Although there was a general lack of scientific evidence of the effectiveness of any of these interventions, some interventions reduced the risk of depredation whereas other interventions did not result in reduced depredation. We urge managers and stakeholders to move towards an evidence-based large carnivore management practice and researchers to conduct studies of intervention effectiveness with a randomized case-control design combined with systematic reviewing to evaluate the evidence.

1. Grey wolves Canis lupus have been studied extensively, but there has been no detailed review of the species’ feeding ecology, despite growing debate about how to conserve wolf populations while limiting their impacts on wild or domestic ungulates. Here, we assess the extent to which grey wolf diet varies among and within North America, Europe and Asia. \ud 2. We derived dietary data from searches of published literature. We grouped studies based on their bioregional location. We compared grey wolf diet among locations using nonmetric multidimensional scaling and analysis of similarity. We assessed whether increased human impacts are associated with decreased grey wolf dietary diversity. Finally, using studies from southern Europe, we assessed whether the importance of wild ungulates in grey wolf diet has increased over time, coincident with a decline in domestic species in grey wolf diet over time.\ud 3. We compiled dietary data from 177 studies incorporating 94607 scat and stomach samples. Grey wolf diet was dominated by large (240-650 kg) and medium-sized (23-130 kg) wild ungulates, but variation in the percentages of wild ungulates consumed, along with variation in the percentages of domestic and smaller prey species consumed, contributed to the dietary differences found among and within continents. \ud 4. We found no evidence that grey wolf dietary diversity varies globally. However, the result from southern Europe suggests that grey wolves may switch their diets away from domestic species if more wild ungulates are available. \ud 5. The diversity of prey consumed by grey wolves shows that the species is capable of surviving dramatic anthropogenic upheaval. However, there is an urgent need to increase our understanding of grey wolf foraging ecology in human-dominated landscapes, in order to determine whether restoration of depleted prey populations, coupled with effective damage-prevention measures, will reduce human-wolf conflicts