Predation impacts and management strategies for wildlife protection

Abstract

Wildlife management activities often serve to balance wildlife populations with perceived available habitat and agency management objectives or recovery goals. Predation management, while controversial in the public arena, is occasionally necessary to help balance populations of prey and predators. To conduct predation management in a responsible manner, the nature of predation impacts to prey populations must be examined and understood. The authors discuss: 1) various factors which affect predation impacts, 2) behavioral changes in prey populations which result in secondary predation impacts, and 3) strategies which may be implemented to facilitate prey populations to attain agency management objectives.