Abstract
AbstractLarge protected areas are often considered to be as important as population size in reducing extinction risk for large carnivores. However, the effectiveness of protected areas for large carnivore survival has rarely been tested where surrounding areas also provide suitable habitats. Using individual‐based long‐term data, we here show that three species of large carnivores all suffered higher risk of illegal killing inside three large national parks than in surrounding unprotected areas in northern Sweden. We suggest that this illegal killing is the result of low enforcement and public presence in these remote parks, which results in a low probability for poachers to be discovered. Our results demonstrate that size of protected areas alone may be a poor predictor of their conservation value for large carnivores. We warn against passive national park management and advocate considering the ecological and socioeconomic context present inside as well as outside protected areas.
Highlights
National parks were created to preserve monuments and wonders of nature
We have evaluated the protection from persecution provided to the three large mammalian carnivores present in the largest national parks in northern Sweden (Sarek, Stora Sjofallet, and Padjelanta; Figure 1) by studying spatial variation in risk of illegal mortality inside these parks as well as in surrounding unprotected areas
Risk models stratified by sex performed substantially better (Table S4), though the effect of sex differed substantially between species; wolverine females suffered 0.39 the risk of illegal mortality relative to males, whereas this difference was weaker in lynx (0.63) and brown bears (0.78)
Summary
National parks were created to preserve monuments and wonders of nature. Today, together with other forms of protected areas (PAs), they are one of the most important tools in biodiversity conservation (Margules & Pressey 2000; Hoffmann et al 2010). Woodroffe & Ginsberg (1998) analyzed historical data and suggested that “critical reserve size” could predict local large carnivore population extinctions This perspective has had a great influence and, the “land sparing” policy of securing large PAs and reducing negative edge effects has become a contemporary paradigm for conservation of large carnivores. In line with this perspective, many African parks are protected islands that increase large carnivore survival in otherwise human-influenced surroundings, and experience substantial edge effects in terms of anthropogenic mortality
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