Poaching of protected wolves fluctuated seasonally and with non-wolf hunting.

ABSTRACT: Poaching is the main cause of mortality for many large carnivores, and mitigating it is imperative for the persistence of their populations. For Wisconsin gray wolves (Canis lupus), periods of increased risk in overall mortality and poaching seem to overlap temporally with legal hunting seasons for other large mammals (hunting wolves was prohibited). We analyzed monitoring data from adult, collared wolves in Wisconsin, USA (1979-2012, n = 495) using a competing-risk approach to test explicitly if seasons during which it was legal to train hunting hounds (hounding) or hunt other large mammals (hunting) affected wolves' hazard of cause-specific mortality and disappearance. We found increases in hazard for disappearances and documented ('reported') poaching during seasons with hunting, houndi

SUBMITTER: Santiago-Avila FJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8810790 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature