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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. 

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.