An official website of the United States government
Abstract Recovered and recovering carnivore populations in Europe and North America can pose risks to some human livelihoods like livestock ranching. These risks can motivate wildlife managers to lethally remove carnivores—decisions that are often controversial and poorly understood. We used a 13-year dataset on gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the northwestern United States (Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon) to analyze how social, demographic, and environmental variables influence lethal removal of wolves at the county and state levels. We found that state-level differences are a major driver of lethal removal decisions at the county level. The percentage of federally owned and protected lands was also positively correlated with lethal removal. Predation of livestock by wolves was not significantly correlated with wolf removals in Idaho, but was in Montana, Washington, and Oregon. Our results stress the need to make transparent the process by which recovering populations of carnivores are managed to enhance the legitimacy of management policies.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on August 22, 2026
Elusive effects of legalized wolf hunting on human-wolf interactions
Expanding gray wolf (Canis lupus) populations in Europe and North America contribute to increased risks of livestock predation, which can threaten human livelihoods and lead government agencies to target wolves for lethal removal. Public wolf hunting is a highly contentious strategy for mitigating these risks, yet few empirical studies examine its effectiveness in doing so. Using difference-in-differences and structural equation modeling of data from the northwestern US between 2005 and 2021, we analyzed impacts of wolf hunting on livestock predation by wolves and government removal of wolves in the same year and with a 1-year time lag while controlling for social and environmental variables. We found that public wolf hunting had a small negative effect on livestock predation but had no effect on government lethal removal of wolves in the same or subsequent years. Our findings challenge the assumption that wolf hunting is an effective management strategy for reducing livestock predation and lethal removal.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10631474
- Publisher / Repository:
- Science
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science Advances
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 34
- ISSN:
- 2375-2548
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract Pleistocene diversity was much higher than today, for example there were three distinct wolf morphotypes (dire, gray, Beringian) in North America versus one today (gray). Previous fossil evidence suggested that these three groups overlapped ecologically, but split the landscape geographically. The Natural Trap Cave (NTC) fossil site in Wyoming,USAis an ideally placed late Pleistocene site to study the geographical movement of species from northern to middle North America before, during, and after the last glacial maximum. Until now, it has been unclear what type of wolf was present atNTC. We analyzed morphometrics of three wolf groups (dire, extant North American gray, Alaskan Beringian) to determine which wolves were present atNTCand what this indicates about wolf diversity and migration in Pleistocene North America. Results showNTCwolves group with Alaskan Beringian wolves. This provides the first morphological evidence for Beringian wolves in mid‐continental North America. Their location atNTCand their radiocarbon ages suggest that they followed a temporary channel through the glaciers. Results suggest high levels of competition and diversity in Pleistocene North American wolves. The presence of mid‐continental Beringian morphotypes adds important data for untangling the history of immigration and evolution ofCanisin North America.more » « less
-
Abstract The grey wolf (Canis lupus) was the first species to give rise to a domestic population, and they remained widespread throughout the last Ice Age when many other large mammal species went extinct. Little is known, however, about the history and possible extinction of past wolf populations or when and where the wolf progenitors of the present-day dog lineage (Canis familiaris) lived1–8. Here we analysed 72 ancient wolf genomes spanning the last 100,000 years from Europe, Siberia and North America. We found that wolf populations were highly connected throughout the Late Pleistocene, with levels of differentiation an order of magnitude lower than they are today. This population connectivity allowed us to detect natural selection across the time series, including rapid fixation of mutations in the geneIFT8840,000–30,000 years ago. We show that dogs are overall more closely related to ancient wolves from eastern Eurasia than to those from western Eurasia, suggesting a domestication process in the east. However, we also found that dogs in the Near East and Africa derive up to half of their ancestry from a distinct population related to modern southwest Eurasian wolves, reflecting either an independent domestication process or admixture from local wolves. None of the analysed ancient wolf genomes is a direct match for either of these dog ancestries, meaning that the exact progenitor populations remain to be located.more » « less
-
Weitzenfeld, A (Ed.)Studies involving the group predator behavior of wolves have inspired multiple robotic architectures to mimic these biological behaviors in their designs and research. In this work, we aim to use robotic systems to mimic wolf packs' single and group behavior. This work aims to extend the original research by Weitzenfeld et al [7] and evaluate under a new multi-robot robot system architecture. The multiple robot architecture includes a 'Prey' pursued by a wolf pack consisting of an 'Alpha' and 'Beta' robotic group. The Alpha Wolf' will be the group leader, searching and tracking the 'Prey.' At the same time, the multiple Beta 'Wolves' will follow behind the Alpha, tracking and maintaining a set distance in the formation. The robotic systems used are multiple raspberry pi-robots designed in the USF bio-robotics lab that use a combination of color cameras and distance sensors to assist the Beta 'Wolves' in keeping a set distance between the Alpha "Wolf" and themselves. Several experiments were performed in simulation, using Webots, and with physical robots. An analysis was done comparing the performance of the physical robot in the real world to the virtual robot in the simulated environment.more » « less
-
Abstract Effective population size estimates are critical information needed for evolutionary predictions and conservation decisions. This is particularly true for species with social factors that restrict access to breeding or experience repeated fluctuations in population size across generations. We investigated the genomic estimates of effective population size along with diversity, subdivision, and inbreeding from 162,109 minimally filtered and 81,595 statistically neutral and unlinked SNPs genotyped in 437 grey wolf samples from North America collected between 1986 and 2021. We found genetic structure across North America, represented by three distinct demographic histories of western, central, and eastern regions of the continent. Further, grey wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains have lower genomic diversity than wolves of the western Great Lakes and have declined over time. Effective population size estimates revealed the historical signatures of continental efforts of predator extermination, despite a quarter century of recovery efforts. We are the first to provide molecular estimates of effective population size across distinct grey wolf populations in North America, which ranged betweenNe ~ 275 and 3050 since early 1980s. We provide data that inform managers regarding the status and importance of effective population size estimates for grey wolf conservation, which are on average 5.2–9.3% of census estimates for this species. We show that while grey wolves fall above minimum effective population sizes needed to avoid extinction due to inbreeding depression in the short term, they are below sizes predicted to be necessary to avoid long‐term risk of extinction.more » « less
