engleski

Evaluating the impacts of global large carnivore reintroduction and translocation strategies

Globally, fragmented landscapes and anthropogenic pressures are causing steep declines in large carnivore populations. Conservation organizations are working to counteract these trends through the reintroduction of large carnivores and translocations within existing populations to promote gene flow and resilience. This study analyzes a dataset we gathered from 15 published papers and 11 unpublished conservation projects for a total of 26 programs involving 241 individ- ual animals across 5 continents. An overall success rate of 65% was shown for large carnivores, indicating an above average success rate when compared to other terrestrial vertebrates. Our anal- ysis shows that key choices, such as using soft releases, choosing younger animals, selecting unfenced release locations and sourcing wild born individuals can lead to a higher likelihood of success. While captive born individuals still fared worse than wild born individuals, they saw a 22% increase in success rates within the last 14 years compared to wild born individuals which saw their success rate grow by 10%. There was also a significant increase in the translocation and reintroduction success rates for all large carnivores over the last 14 years. Despite these optimistic success rates, only 43% of study subjects were observed demonstrating reproductive behavior. While this is likely an undercount, we caution the conflation of translocation and reintroduction success. As the UN Decade on ecosystem restoration gets underway, we hope this information can inform project coordinators and assist in achieving more desirable outcomes for large carni- vore translocations and reintroductions.

reintroduction, translocation, large carnivores, dataset analysis, key choices, soft release, captive born, wild born, success rates, ecosystem restoration

nije evidentirano