RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Moving towards an ecological management of overabundant ungulates: insights from wildlife-vehicle collisions and hunting bag data
A1 Tarjuelo Mostajo, Rocío
A1 Luque Larena, Juan José
A1 Mougeot, François Robert
K1 Deer
K1 Large carnivores
K1 Mitigation of human-wildlife impacts
K1 Wild boar
K1 Wildlife management
K1 31 Ciencias Agrarias
AB Increasing abundance of large ungulates is raising human-wildlife impacts and the effectiveness of recreational hunting toreduce their population growth is increasingly questioned. We report on long-term trends (> 15 years) in wildlife-vehiclecollisions (WVC) and hunting bags, and on associations between the annual growth rate of WVC and that of hunting bagsfor three ungulates – the wild boar, the red deer, and the roe deer – and the grey wolf in northwest Spain to evaluate theregulating capacity of recreational hunting at large spatial scale. Wildlife-vehicle collisions increased by 332% in 16 yearsand 91% of all traffic accidents were caused by collisions with these three ungulates. All ungulate species showed significantpositive trends in WVC and hunting bags, but we did not observe a negative association between annual growth rate of hunt-ing bags and that of WVC except for the wild boar. Results suggest that recreational hunting was unable to reduce ungulatepopulation growth at the regional scale. There was no upward trend of vehicle collisions with wolves over the study period,possibly reflecting stable wolf populations. Natural mortality due to predation could be promoted through the protectionof apex predators, but the lethal management of apex predators, often based on sociopolitical pressures rather than damagelevels, can conflict with the strategy for mitigating ungulate impacts. Ungulate management needs to be reconsidered from anecological perspective that integrates human management measures, including recreational hunting, based on the populationdynamics and the recovery of predator–prey interactions by favoring the expansion of apex predators.
PB Springer
SN 1612-4642
YR 2024
FD 2024
LK https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/75179
UL https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/75179
LA eng
NO European Journal of Wildlife Research, 2024, vol. 70, n. 3
NO Producción Científica
DS UVaDOC
RD 19-may-2025