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Schematic of the trophic cascades enacted upon the reintroduction of the wolf to Yellowstone National Park at the end of the 20 th Century
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Executive Summary
The history of the wolf in Eurasia has been one of controversy and persecution and by the middle of the 20th century wolves were gone from all central & northern European countries, remaining only in tiny and fragmented populations in the Mediterranean peninsulas and, in larger numbers, in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. However,...
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Context 1
... pivotal role has been clearly demonstrated in Yellowstone National Park, North America, with a highly controversial but extremely well implemented wolf reintroduction programme. The ecological changes that have occurred at every level within Yellowstone since the return of the wolf, have far exceeded even the most visionary wolf biologists' imaginings ( Figure 1). These changes also demonstrate the role and value of the wolf as an umbrella species, providing a measure of ecosystem health. ...
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Reproductive performance is one of the most important life-history traits that should be routinely studied and considered in adaptive wildlife management. In the case of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), a species with delayed implantation, which complicates studies on fetuses, corpora lutea (CL) counting is the only alternative for routine monitorin...
Citations
... However, the period of decline in beaver densities coincided with the appearance of African swine fever (ASF) in wild boar (Pejsak et al., 2018). The outbreak of the epidemic took place in 2014, and the effect was a significant decrease in the population of wild boar, which is one of the wolf's most important prey (Jędrzejewska et al., 2000;Nowak et al., 2011;Newsome et al., 2016;Goldthorpe, 2016;Sidorovich et al., 2017;Pejsak et al., 2018;Gable and Windels, 2018;Figueiredo et al., 2020;Trbojević et al., 2020;Klich et al., 2021b). The beaver is rather the victim of being a second choice, although, locally, it can also be one of the primary prey species for this predator (Mech, 1994;Nitsche, 2016;Gable et al., 2016;Gable and Windels, 2018;Latham et al., 2013;Andersone and Ozoliņš, 2004;Vostokov, 2016;Bassi et al. al. 2020). ...
The Eurasian beaver is currently found in at least 32 European countries, with many of these populations being established in the 1960s. In most European countries, the beaver is under protection, however, when the population is strong, the beaver becomes a game species. In Poland, the beaver is partially protected despite the species having a strong population. In this study we aimed to compare the development trends of Eurasian beaver populations in two management regimes, in Poland (protected) and Belarus (hunted), between 2004 and 2019. We compared beaver population trends in both countries, and analyzed the factors that could impact population growth. In Poland, during this period the population increased 3.5 times, while in Belarus it was only 20%. Distinct differences in the rate of population numbers increase were also observed between regions in Poland, but a stable, slight increase similar in all regions in Belarus. Our study did not show that precipitation or the density of this species influenced the rate of population development in Poland. During this period, hunting and wolf density significantly and negatively impacted beaver population growth in Belarus, but in the long-term analysis, hunting had a lower impact on beaver population growth. We concluded that we can expect a further increase in this population in Poland. Long-term hunting at a level of 13,7% (based on the analysis of population dynamics and hunting bags for Belarus) of the annual population seems to be a safe value for the beaver population. Nevertheless more detailed analysis should be carried out in the face of the large differences between regions.
The increasing animosity towards wolves ( Canis lupus ) by livestock-keeping nomads in Mongolia and the accompanying conflicts highlight the urgent need for knowledge about the feeding behavior of wolves, since information on the feeding ecology of wolves in Mongolia is rare, especially in the mountain taiga and mountain forest steppe regions of Northern Mongolia. Those regions are characterized by a relatively high wildlife diversity and are sparsely populated by humans. To face this problem, 137 wolf scats were collected in the Khentii Mountain range in Northern Mongolia between 2008 and 2012. Almost all wolf faeces contained remnants of wild ungulates, which made up 89% of the consumed biomass. Siberian roe deer ( Capreolus pygargus ) was the most important and positively selected prey species. It was followed by red deer ( Cervus elaphus ) and wild boar ( Sus scrofa ), which was negatively selected by wolves. Wolves also fed on buffer prey species such as lagomorphs and small mammals. No evidence of domestic ungulates was found in the wolf diet. Thus, near-natural habitats with a diverse fauna of wild animals are important to limit livestock depredation.
