Management of wolf and lynx conflicts with human interests

Abstract

In many areas viable populations of large carnivores are political goals. One of the most important factors in order to achieve viable large carnivore populations is human tolerance for presence of large carnivores. Thus, management of large carnivore populations in multi use landscapes will involve mitigating conflicts with human interests. In order to mitigate conflicts in a effective way, managers need tools for predicting likelihood of large carnivore occurrence, knowledge on which conflicts are considered as most important by humans in different areas, and the most efficient ways of mitigating the experienced problems. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to some parts of this toolbox for large carnivore managers. A habitat suitability model, with density of roads and built up areas as the most important variables, classified 79% of Scandinavia outside the reindeer husbandry area as suitable wolf habitat. Human tolerance towards wolves was lowest inside wolf territories and slowly increased amongst residents living up to 200 km from the nearest wolf territory. Human tolerance towards wolves may however be affected by mitigation measures such as subsidising electric fences in order to reduce the risk of wolf depredation on livestock. Management actions as subsidies for pro active measures or predator control should be targeting specific areas or individuals in order to be effective. It is also important to use the "right" management actions at the right time. Therefore it is, among other things, important to know if a reported bold wolf is acting in a way that most wolves would not, given the same circumstances. Wolves moved away from an approaching human on average at a distance of about 100 m. Wind velocity and wind direction influenced the distance heavily and humans may come as close to wolves as 17 meters before the wolves become aware of the human and react.