Ecological correlates of large carnivore depredation on sheep in Europe

Gervasi, Vincenzo; Linnell, John D. C.; Berce, Tomaž; Boitani, Luigi; Černe, Rok; Ciucci, Paolo; Cretois, Benjamin; Derron-Hilfiker, Daniela; Duchamp, Christophe; Gastineau, Adrienne; Grente, Oksana; Huber, Djuro; Iliopoulos, Yorgos; Karamanlidis, Alexandros A.; Kojola, Ilpo; Marucco, Francesca; Mertzanis, Yorgos; Männil, Peep; Norberg, Harri; Pagon, Nives; Pedrotti, Luca; Quenette, Pierre‐Yves; Reljić, Slaven; Salvatori, Valéria; Talvi, Tõnu; Arx, Manuela von; Giménez, Olivier

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01798

Cited by 17 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our results closely agree with those of large-scale studies of wolf depredation on sheep in Europe (Gervasi et al, 2021) and cattle and sheep in several US states (Wielgus and Peebles, 2014;re-analyzed by Poudyal et al, 2016). It was found out that wider wolf distribution and higher sheep numbers were the main determinants increasing the numbers of sheep killed by wolves and then compensated (Gervasi et al, 2021) and the numbers of wolf breeding pairs analogous to breeding units in our study did not affect losses of cattle and sheep (Poudyal et al, 2016). Predator number can be a weak predictor of sheep losses at large scales, but play a more important role at local scales of management units where more wolves have higher chances to kill more sheep.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Distribution is a geographical factor indicating the presence of wolves, which increases over time in recolonizing species, rather than a numerical factor of wolf numbers. Meantime, as the exposure to predators becomes longer, sheep losses tend to decrease due to co-adaptation of predators and local societies (Gervasi et al, 2021). This is a good perspective for Germany where sheep losses are still on the rise as the wolf recolonization is "young, " but they are expected to recede over time with the wolf population approaching its carrying capacity (Fechter and Storch, 2014) and farmers protecting their livestock and becoming more tolerant (Cretois et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The recovery of large predator populations and their return to the areas where they formerly were extirpated have been a fascinating result of long-term and dedicated conservation efforts Hamilton et al, 2020). However, apart from satisfaction and enthusiasm, these processes also bring high costs of co-existence and co-adaptation between humans and predators in a new reality (Carter and Linnell, 2016;Bergstrom, 2017;Kuijper et al, 2019;Boronyak et al, 2020;Cretois et al, 2021;Gervasi et al, 2021). Predators may trespass public places, frighten and in exceptional cases attack people, affect human behavior and lifestyle, and inflict financial losses by killing livestock, damaging crops, reducing productivity of stressed livestock, and increasing workload and anxiety of affected people (Barua et al, 2013;Steele et al, 2013;Widman et al, 2019;Khorozyan and Waltert, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, it is not surprising that increasing losses of domestic livestock and farmed game species are associated with increasing wolf numbers. Like elsewhere in Europe (Gervasi et al, 2021), most of the damage has been inflicted on sheep, which make about 80% of all livestock and farmed game species killed annually by this predator in Germany (Dokumentations-und Beratungsstelle des Bundes zum Thema Wolf [DBBW], 2017[DBBW], , 2018[DBBW], , 2019[DBBW], , 2020b. In 2019, 2894 domestic animals and farmed game, including 2476 sheep, were killed by wolves (Dokumentationsund Beratungsstelle des Bundes zum Thema Wolf [DBBW], 2020b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Large-Scale Sheep Losses to Wolves (Canis lupus) in Germany Are Related to the Expansion of the Wolf Population but Not to Increasing Wolf Numbers

Khorozyan

Heurich

2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recovery of predator populations triggers conflicts due to livestock depredation losses, particularly in Germany where the wolf (Canis lupus) population grows exponentially and livestock (especially sheep) losses raise public concerns and motivate the authorities to control wolf numbers. Yet, the effects of wolf numbers and alternative factors, such as abundance of prey and livestock, on livestock losses in this country are not investigated. In this study, we collected and analyzed data on the numbers of reproductive units of wolves (packs and pairs together) as a surrogate of adult wolf numbers, sheep killed by wolves, living sheep, red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), and wild boar (Sus scrofa) in every German state and year from 2002 to 2019. We applied a negative binomial Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) to estimate the effects of these predictors on the numbers of sheep killed by wolves. We also examined the relationships between the percentages of killed/living sheep and the numbers of living sheep. Ranking of 63 models based on the Akaike information criterion revealed that sheep losses were determined by state, year, and number of living sheep, not by wolf numbers, at high precision and accuracy. The number of sheep killed by wolves increased consistently by 41% per year and by 30% for every additional 10,000 sheep, mainly in the north where most wolf territories are concentrated. This means that sheep are protected insufficiently and/or ineffectively. The percentages of killed/living sheep consistently increased by 0.02–0.05% per state and year, with the maximum percentage of 0.7%, on a backdrop of decreasing numbers of living sheep. In conclusion, we demonstrate that sheep losses in Germany have been driven by the expansion of the wolf population, not by wolf numbers, and by the number of sheep available. We suggest that Germany’s wolf conservation policy should focus on alternative non-lethal interventions, enforcement and standardization of intervention monitoring, and promotion of wolf tolerance rather than on lethal control of wolf population size.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Large-Scale Sheep Losses to Wolves (Canis lupus) in Germany Are Related to the Expansion of the Wolf Population but Not to Increasing Wolf Numbers

Khorozyan

Heurich

2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The copyright holder for this preprint (which this version posted July 13, 2022. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.12.499715 doi: bioRxiv preprint Previous work reported mixed results, with several studies at regional scales reporting that livestock in heterogeneous landscapes and in particular close to forest edges were the most vulnerable to wolf predation (Rigg et al, 2011;Kaartinen et al, 2009), yet across multiple countries no landscape features were correlated with the number of compensated sheep (Gervasi et al, 2021). In contrast, the number of wolves correlated positively with the number of compensated sheep at the scale of multiple countries (Gervasi et al, 2021), yet incidents appeared to increase with the geographic spread of wolves at regional scales, but not with an increase in their numbers (Khorozyan and Heurich, 2022).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The spatial distribution and temporal trends of livestock damages caused by wolves in Europe

Singer

Wietlisbach

Hickisch³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SummaryWolf populations are recovering and expanding across Europe, causing conflicts with livestock owners. To mitigate these conflicts and reduce livestock damages, authorities spend considerable resources to compensate damages, support damage prevention measures, and manage wolf populations. However, the effectiveness of these measures remains largely unknown, especially at larger geographic scales. Here we compiled incident-based livestock damage data across 21 countries for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, during which 39,445 wolf-caused incidents were reported from 470 NUTS3 regions. We found substantial regional variation in all aspects of the data, including the primary target species, the density of damages, their seasonal distribution, and their temporal trend. About one third of the variation in damage densities is explained by the area of heterogeneous landscapes consisting of forests and extensively cultivated habitats occupied by wolves. However, most of the variation remains unexplained, illustrating the inherently stochastic nature of wolf-caused livestock damages and regional variation in husbandry practices, including damage prevention measures. As we argue, the intensity of the wolf-human conflict may be monitored through trends in livestock damages, which are robust to variation in data collection across regions. We estimated increasing trends for the majority of regions, reflecting the current expansion of wolves across the continent. Nonetheless, many of these increases were moderate and for more than one third of all regions, trends were negative despite a growing wolf populations, thus indicating that wolf-livestock conflicts can be successfully mitigated with proper management.

show abstract