Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management.

ABSTRACT: Predators and their protection are controversial worldwide. Gray wolves, Canis lupus, lost U.S. federal protection (delisting) and the State of Wisconsin began lethal management first among all states and tribes that regained authority over wolves. Here we evaluated the initial success of reaching the state's explicit objective, "…to allow for a sustainable harvest that neither increases nor decreases the state's wolf population…" We used official state figures for hunter-killed wolves, population estimates from April 2017-2020, and the latest peer-reviewed model of individual wolf survival to estimate additional deaths resulting from federal delisting. More than half of the additional deaths were predicted to be cryptic poaching under the assumption that this period resembled past

SUBMITTER: Treves A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8265384 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature