Wildlife Management Practices Research Articles

Wildlife Tracker using Deep Learning

Wildlife tracker using deep learning is a project aimed at developing a system that can automatically detect wild animals using deep learning techniques. Conservationists and researchers face challenges in accurately and efficiently detecting and monitoring wildlife populations in vast and often remote habitats. Traditional methods of wildlife monitoring, such as manual surveys or camera traps, are labour-intensive, time-consuming, and may not provide real-time insights into population dynamics or threats facing wildlife species. The proposed system aims to address these challenges by developing an automated animal detection system using the YOLOv8 object detection model. The system will be trained on a diverse dataset of wildlife images, encompassing various species and environmental conditions. Upon deployment, the system will analyse input images and accurately identify and localize animals within the scene in real-time. Through this approach, the system will provide conservationists and researchers with timely and actionable information for monitoring wildlife populations, assessing habitat health, and implementing targeted conservation interventions. Evaluation of the system's performance will involve metrics such as detection accuracy, precision, recall, and processing speed, ensuring reliable and efficient wildlife detection capabilities. Overall, the proposed system seeks to enhance wildlife conservation efforts by leveraging advanced technology to improve wildlife monitoring and management practices and provide real-time alert.

A multispecies hierarchical model to integrate count and distance‐sampling data

AbstractIntegrated community models—an emerging framework in which multiple data sources for multiple species are analyzed simultaneously—offer opportunities to expand inferences beyond the single‐species and single‐data‐source approaches common in ecology. We developed a novel integrated community model that combines distance sampling and single‐visit count data; within the model, information is shared among data sources (via a joint likelihood) and species (via a random‐effects structure) to estimate abundance patterns across a community. Parameters relating to abundance are shared between data sources, and the model can specify either shared or separate observation processes for each data source. Simulations demonstrated that the model provided unbiased estimates of abundance and detection parameters even when detection probabilities varied between the data types. The integrated community model also provided more accurate and more precise parameter estimates than alternative single‐species and single‐data‐source models in many instances. We applied the model to a community of 11 herbivore species in the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, and found considerable interspecific variation in response to local wildlife management practices: Five species showed higher abundances in a region with passive conservation enforcement (median across species: 4.5× higher), three species showed higher abundances in a region with active conservation enforcement (median: 3.9× higher), and the remaining three species showed no abundance differences between the two regions. Furthermore, the community average of abundance was slightly higher in the region with active conservation enforcement but not definitively so (posterior mean: higher by 0.20 animals; 95% credible interval: 1.43 fewer animals, 1.86 more animals). Our integrated community modeling framework has the potential to expand the scope of inference over space, time, and levels of biological organization, but practitioners should carefully evaluate whether model assumptions are met in their systems and whether data integration is valuable for their applications.

Evolving wildlife management cultures of governance through Indigenous Knowledges and perspectives

AbstractWithin governance agencies, academia, and communities alike, there are increasing calls to recognize the value and importance of culture within social‐ecological systems and to better implement Indigenous sciences in research, policy, and management. Efforts thus far have raised questions about the best ethical practices to do so. Engaging with plural worldviews and perspectives on their own terms reflects cultural evolutionary processes driving paradigm shifts in 3 fundamental areas of natural resource management: conceptualizations of natural resources and ecosystems, processes of public participation and governance, and relationships with Indigenous Peoples and communities with differing worldviews. We broadly describe evolution toward these paradigm shifts in fish and wildlife management. We then use 3 case studies to illustrate the ongoing cultural evolution of relationships between wildlife management and Indigenous practices within specific historical and social‐ecological contexts and reflect on common barriers to appropriately engaging with Indigenous paradigms and lifeways. Our case studies highlight 3 priorities that can assist the field of wildlife management in achieving the changes necessary to bridge incommensurable worldviews: acknowledging and reconciling historical legacies and their continued power dynamics as part of social‐ecological systems, establishing governance arrangements that move beyond attempts to extract cultural information from communities to integrate Indigenous Knowledges into dominant management paradigms, and engaging in critical reflexivity and reciprocal, accountable relationship building. Implementing these changes will take time and a commitment to processes that may initially feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar but have potential to be transformative. Ethical and culturally appropriate methods to include plural and multivocal perspectives and worldviews on their own terms are needed to transform wildlife management to achieve more effective and just management outcomes for all.

Wildlife and the restorative potential of natural settings

How does the likelihood of encountering wildlife affect residents’ expectations about psychological restoration when visiting a local natural setting, and their choices among settings for future recreation? Do urban and rural residents differ in such expectations and choices? We addressed these questions in a web-based experiment with 223 adult residents randomly sampled from urban and rural areas in each of three regions in Sweden. Residents in all six areas can encounter fear-irrelevant wildlife (roe deer, squirrel) near the home, but the presence of fear-relevant wildlife (wolf, wild boar) differs across the areas. The respondents read scenarios concerning encounters with each of these four animals during recreational visits to a nearby natural setting. The scenarios varied in how frequently the person could expect to encounter each animal across visits (never, sometimes, often). For all 12 scenarios, respondents answered questions about anticipated experiences and restoration outcomes, and the effect of encounter likelihood on future recreational setting choices. Across all areas, with all outcomes, increased likelihood of encounters with the wolves and wild boar detracted from anticipated restorative potential, whereas increased likelihood of encounters with roe deer and squirrel enhanced anticipated restorative potential. A similar pattern showed in recreational setting choices. A domination wildlife value orientation moderated the effects of encounter likelihood for wolf and wild boar, whereas a mutualistic orientation moderated the effects of encounter likelihood for squirrel and roe deer. Our results suggest that wildlife management and public health practice could work together not only to address the fears of residents, but also to enhance the restorative quality of local natural settings by protecting wildlife.

Linking winter severity to space use of European bison around feeding sites in Białowieża Primeval Forest (NE Poland)

Supplementary feeding is a commonly used wildlife management practice, but while it may bring benefits and fulfil management goals, it can also result in unintended negative consequences. In the temperate zone, winter supplementary feeding may reduce movement of some ungulate species, leading to increased utilization of feeding sites by individuals and, consequently, animal aggregation. However, the intensity of feeding site utilization can vary depending on various extrinsic factors, e.g. habitat type, population density or weather conditions. Here, we predicted that the index of feeding sites utilization, expressed as the distance of European bison (Bison bonasus) to feeding sites, would be positively associated with the severity of winter conditions; thus, bison will be closer to feeding sites on colder days and in the presence of snow cover. We analysed winter (December to March) tracking data of 43 VHF- and GPS-collared European bison (24 males and 19 females) collected from 2005 to 2012 in Białowieża Primeval Forest (NE Poland), where bison are supplementally fed with different intensity throughout winter. Female bison were closer to feeding sites than males throughout winter, and regardless of sex, bison were the closest to feeding sites in mid-winter (January to February) and on colder days independently of the time of the season. Additionally, the distances of bison to feeding sites were significantly related to snow cover and depth; i.e. bison were closer to the feeding sites on days with present snow cover and deeper snow. Hence, the winter area occupied by bison differed with changing weather severity — being 4 and 28 times larger in the warmest periods compared to the coldest days with snow cover (for females and males, respectively). This may have direct and indirect ecological consequences for the ecosystem due to potential impact on nutrient cycling, seed dispersal, interspecific competition, vegetation growth, forest succession and carrion distribution. Given these ecological impacts of bison and weather-dependent utilization of supplementary fodder, we recognize the possible need in the future to revise and adapt winter supplementary feeding to annual and seasonal variation in winter severity to meet management goals while optimizing the costs.

Dominant attitudes and values toward wildlife and the environment in coastal Alabama

AbstractSurveys assessing attitudes and values about the environment can help predict human behavior toward wildlife and develop effective conservation goals alongside local communities. Coastal Alabama, in the southeastern United States, is a hotspot for biodiversity and endemism and needs protection. Land and wildlife management practices in Alabama have moved from indigenous‐led, which is more in harmony with the environment, to larger‐scale exploitative uses for agriculture and plantations. We therefore predicted that a large proportion of the population has a dominant view of the environment in which land and wildlife are primarily for human benefit. To test this hypothesis, we surveyed over 1300 residents in Mobile and Baldwin counties—the two southernmost counties in Alabama—to assess attitudes toward local vertebrate wildlife, knowledge of the region's biodiversity, and whether individuals value protected areas where they live and/or work. As hunting is generally considered a dominant behavior, we used self‐identified hunters versus non‐hunters to examine the relationship between humans and the environment. Overall, hunters would kill or kill to eat more often than non‐hunters, and would kill even when it is not for food. Furthermore, regardless of hunting status, most participants in our survey would kill a snake, indicating that targeted environmental education is needed for this group. Both hunters and non‐hunters, independently of demographic differences including education and income levels, were not familiar with the especially rich biodiversity of the area and would not be willing to invest money to protect it. Our results indicate that targeted education about the unique and rich biodiversity of southern Alabama compared to the rest of the United States is needed to support successful environmental management, conservation actions, and local participation.

Biocultural Importance of the Chiuri Tree [Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam] for the Chepang Communities of Central Nepal

Major socio-economic changes over the last few decades have reduced Indigenous peoples’ engagement in cultural practices, such as harvesting of forest resources. Nevertheless, some species remain important for culture, subsistence and livelihood, such as the chiuri tree (Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam) to the Chepang people of Central Nepal. Using the cultural keystone species framework, we conducted interviews within Chepang communities to assess the biocultural importance of the chiuri tree. It is central to the Chepang culture, and no other species could provide the same benefits. It also provides food and habitat for a number of wildlife species, including bats, which are themselves culturally important. Strictly observed tree ownership rules, as well as a cultural ban on tree cutting and branch lopping, have so far contributed to chiuri conservation. However, these rules are increasingly less adhered to. Other threats to chiuri sustainability are excessive flower foraging by bees (reducing pollen production) and bat hunting (reducing pollen transport). Further studies are needed to quantify these threats and to adjust forest and wildlife management practices so that the cultural landscape continues to provide multiple benefits to the Chepang people. Our study of the chiuri case attests to the usefulness of the cultural keystone species framework in landscape assessment for management and conservation.

Bridging Knowledge Creation and Conservation Practice through Participatory Action Research on Private Lands

Ongoing failure to resolve how wildlife and people can co-exist on private land contributes to the global decline of wildlife populations. Experience in Tasmania, Australia suggests a disconnect between wildlife researchers, environmental agencies, and private landholders that prevents new scientific insights from translating into improved wildlife management practices. This case study based on a participatory action research model, describes a wildlife conservation initiative called WildTracker. WildTracker created hands-on collaborations among private landholders, university researchers, and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy (TLC). Landholders from 3 regions (total area 9977 km²) participated in an iterative 2-year research process involving problem-framing workshops, data collection (mammals, birds, and habitat) using wildlife cameras and sound recorders, data analysis, and discussion of results. Participants contributed more than 2,000 hours to the project, resulting in more than 500,000 wildlife observations, with many landholders now implementing research findings, guided by locality-specific data on wildlife populations, feral animals, and habitat condition. WildTracker has evolved from a short-term participatory research project into an ongoing collaborative citizen science program that is documenting and contributing to on-the-ground and evolving wildlife conservation outcomes.

Attitude Index of Local Communities toward Wildlife and Their Management Methods in Malaysia

Wildlife have an important role in the lives of local people and conservation practitioners in Malaysia because of their rare and elusive status, socioeconomic impacts, and management conflicts. However, few studies have evaluated the local attitudes toward wildlife and their management methods in Malaysia. In this study, we used indices to measure attitudes toward wildlife and their management methods in Malaysia. The iterative item reliability analysis was executed on online questionnaire data from a random sample of 585 local respondents using Cronbach’s alpha. The result yielded two indices of locals’ attitudes; (i) Wildlife Attitude Index (WAI); and (ii) Wildlife Management Method Attitude Index (WMMAI). The WAI had a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.71 and the WMMAI had a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.73. The following variables had significant determinants of WAI and WMMAI in Malaysia: (i) gender; (ii) age; (iii) level of education; (iv) residential area; (v) familiarity (experience); and (vi) nature engagement. These attitude indices could be significant in assisting conservation practitioners and decision-makers in understanding locals’ attitudes to prioritize wildlife management practices and showing the relationship between management and local demographics with the assumption that high-scoring individuals are more likely to favor wildlife conservation initiatives and activities.

Attitudes of The Wildlife Society members toward uses of wildlife

AbstractLarge‐scale sociological, geographic, and demographic changes affect the way people interact with and value wildlife. Beliefs and attitudes of stakeholders towards wildlife and uses of wildlife are also shifting along with these geographical and demographic changes. Changes in societal or professional attitudes toward uses of wildlife has potential to create alignment issues between wildlife professionals and society. To inform deliberations within The Wildlife Society (TWS) and the larger population of conservation professionals, we assessed and compared the change over time between 1998 and 2020 in value orientations, beliefs, and attitudes toward uses of wildlife and wildlife management practices of members of TWS as a proxy for practicing wildlife professionals. We administered a Qualtrics web‐based survey (n = 3,247), January–March 2020. Respondents closely approximated TWS membership demographically, who identified as male (59.7%) and female (37.7%), and geographically within 50 U.S. states at the time of the survey. Results indicated wildlife conservation professionals express as broad of a spectrum of beliefs, albeit shifting, about consumptive uses of wildlife in hunting and trapping much as they did 2 decades ago. Change in attitudes and beliefs was modest but mutualistic or protectionist beliefs and attitudes increased, especially among younger professionals, toward the ethical acceptability of harvested animals involving fair chase and sportsmanship (72% in 1998; 93.2% in 2020), and in expressed acceptance of regulated hunting and trapping. Our work provides insights into potential focus areas of training and education, such as Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow and Trapping Matters.

Taking time to think: The tyranny of being “too busy” and the practice of wildlife management

Wildlife professionals in the United States are in a paradoxical situation, often expressed in statements such as: “My professional responsibilities make it impossible to find time to be as thoughtful about my work as I would like.” Many wildlife professionals who find themselves in this situation figuratively throw up their hands when presented with an opportunity to consider novel ideas or explore new possibilities and declare: “I’m too busy; I have more to do than ever before with no time left over to think about new ideas and approaches let alone create them.” If the wildlife profession addresses this conundrum openly and mitigates the detrimental consequences it has on individuals and their effectiveness, we suggest enhanced conservation will occur. Toward this end, we explore three questions: (a) what is preventing wildlife professionals from setting a greater priority on taking time to reflect critically about their work? (b) what are the perceived consequences of the current condition? and (c) what are people doing to reduce the problem? The root of the issue is manifold, from the fallacy of equating activity to productivity, the normalization of “busyness”, and a tendency towards action bias, to additional institutional challenges at the organizational level. Efforts to improve the situation will be a substantial undertaking, likely requiring simultaneous interventions at multiple levels guide individual and organizational prioritization processes, implemented over time, and continuously renewed. This article describes the tyranny of being too busy—its symptoms, causes, and effects—and presents ideas for mitigating the problem offered by wildlife professionals and the organizational behavior literature.

Understanding barriers and benefits to adopting elephant coexistence practices in oil palm plantation landscapes in Lower Kinabatangan, Sabah

Oil palm managers are one of the key stakeholders who could help strengthen efforts to protect elephants in the landscape. We used a Theory of Change (ToC) approach to hypothesize potential barriers and benefits to managers adopting best practise. We conducted two workshopss with more than 60 participants to better understand managers’ perceptions of Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) and their willingness to adopt better wildlife management practices. The workshops confirmed that some of the outcomes we perceived in the original ToC, including security issues, false accusations, negative perceptions by the international community and crop damage, were affecting their willingness to promote coexistence in their plantation. However, we also uncovered other potential barriers and opportunities to promote coexistence, including international and national standards that do not provide enough technical and practical guidance for all levels, expensive monitoring costs, and inconsistent collaboration among industry players and between government and non-government agencies. Our initial findings suggest that new attitudes and perceptions have not been explored before and may be critical for manager engagement and adoption of best practices for HEC, as well as the identification of new audiences that would need to be engaged to be successful in achieving elephant conservation goals.

No fry zones: How restaurant distribution and abundance influence avian communities in the Phoenix, AZ metropolitan area.

Urbanization is one of the most widespread and extreme examples of habitat alteration. As humans dominate landscapes, they introduce novel elements into environments, including artificial light, noise pollution, and anthropogenic food sources. One understudied form of anthropogenic food is refuse from restaurants, which can alter wildlife populations and, in turn, entire wildlife communities by providing a novel and stable food source. Using data from the Maricopa Association of Governments and the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project, we investigated whether and how the distribution of restaurants influences avian communities. The research aimed to identify restaurants, and thus the associated food they may provide, as the driver of potential patterns by controlling for other influences of urbanization, including land cover and the total number of businesses. Using generalized linear mixed models, we tested whether the number of restaurants within 1 km of bird monitoring locations predict avian community richness and abundance and individual species abundance and occurrence patterns. Results indicate that restaurants may decrease avian species diversity and increase overall abundance. Additionally, restaurants may be a significant predictor of the overall abundance of urban-exploiting species, including rock pigeon (Columba livia), mourning dove (Zenaida macroura), and Inca dove (Columbina Inca). Understanding how birds utilize anthropogenic food sources can inform possible conservation or wildlife management practices. As this study highlights only correlations, we suggest further experimental work to address the physiological ramifications of consuming anthropogenic foods provided by restaurants and studies to quantify how frequently anthropogenic food sources are used compared to naturally occurring sources.

Compassionate Conservation is indistinguishable from traditional forms of conservation in practice.

Animal welfare and ethics are important factors influencing wildlife conservation practice, and critics are increasingly challenging the underlying ethics and motivations supporting common conservation practices. “Compassionate Conservationists” argue that all conservationists should respect the rights of individual sentient animals and approach conservation problems from a position of compassion, and that doing so requires implementing practices that avoid direct harm to individual animals. In this way Compassionate Conservationists seek to contrast themselves with “Traditional Conservationists” who often express consequentialist decision-making processes that ostensibly aim to dispassionately minimize net animal harms, resulting in the common use of practices that directly harm or kill some animals. Conservationists and other observers might therefore conclude that the two sides of this debate are distinct and/or that their policy proscriptions produce different welfare outcomes for animals. To explore the validity of this conclusion we review the ethical philosophies underpinning two types of Compassionate Conservation—deontology and virtue ethics. Deontology focusses on animal rights or the moral duties or obligations of conservationists, whereas virtue ethics focusses on acting in ways that are virtuous or compassionate. We demonstrate that both types permit the intentional harm and killing of animals when faced with common conservation problems where animals will be harmed no matter what the conservationist does or does not do. We then describe the applied decision-making processes exhibited by Compassionate Conservationists (of both types) and Traditional Conservationists to show that they may each lead to the implementation of similar conservation practices (including lethal control) and produce similar outcomes for animals, despite the perceived differences in their ethical motivations. The widespread presence of wildlife conservation problems that cannot be resolved without causing at least some harm to some animals means that conservationists of all persuasions must routinely make trade-offs between the welfare of some animals over others. Compassionate Conservationists do this from an explicit position of animal rights and/or compassion, whereas Traditional Conservationists respect animal rights and exhibit this same compassion implicitly. These observations lead to the conclusion that Compassionate Conservation is indistinguishable from traditional forms of conservation in practice, and that the apparent disagreement among conservationists primarily concerns the effectiveness of various wildlife management practices at minimizing animal harm, and not the underlying ethics, motivations or morality of those practices.

Effects of visitor disturbance on tetrapod vertebrates in the Horton Plains National Park, Sri Lanka

Effect of visitor disturbances on tetrapod vertebrates was studied from December 2017 to October 2018 in the Horton Plains National Park (HPNP), which is one of the world’s best nature reserves and a popular tourist destination of Sri Lanka. Roads and nature trails with cloud forest, aquatic and grasslands habitats inside the HPNP were selected to compare the effect of visitor disturbances. Three 100 meter fixed length line transects were marked along the roads and the nature trails in each habitat. Vehicle noise was measured using sound meter software. Visitor activities that cause disturbance included road kills, photography, trampling and animal feeding. Amphibian and reptile road kills were higher compared to other tetrapod road kills during vacation periods. Behavioral response of species to visitor disturbances included avoidance, habituation and attraction. When the vehicle noise range was from 63±2.11 dB to 69±2.11 dB, habituation behavior was displayed. When the vehicle noise range increased to the range of 70±4.71 dB to 88±4.71 dB, avoidance behavior was displayed. Animals display a propensity to habituation behavior compared to avoidance behavior when vehicle speed was less than 30 kmh/hr. The results of this study can be used to integrate with the future visitor, park and wildlife management practices of the park.

Genetic patterns in three South African specialist antelope species: Threats, conservation management and their implications

AbstractGenetic diversity is a fundamental measure of a populations ability to adapt to future environmental change. Subpopulations may carry unique genetic lineages that contribute to fitness and genetic diversity of species across their distribution range. Therefore, considerations, or lack thereof, of genetic diversity in wildlife management practices may result in either population persistence or extinction over time. Some management tools may pose a greater risk to a species' survival than others when populations are impacted. In South Africa, there has been great interest to translocate animals, sometimes with little consideration to the potential impacts on the species and/or populations survival. Thus, there is a need to collate scientific information to better inform decision‐making and review these management practices and their effects on populations. Here, we focus on three antelope species, the blue duiker (Philantomba monticola), oribi (Ourebia ourebi), and tsessebe (Damaliscus lunatus). We review the genetic status of each species across South Africa, with regards to taxonomy, genetic diversity and population structure, threats that may compromise the genetic diversity within species and across populations, conservation management actions and how they may compromise or benefit the genetic status and lastly make recommendations on possible alternative management actions and future research to inform conservation policy and sustainable management practice.

The Status and Swot Analysis of Roe Deer Population Management in the Hunting Grounds of Central Serbia

Summary The purpose of this study is to examine the status of roe deer population in the hunting grounds of Central Serbia, and perform a SWOT analysis of its management. The data used herein on the number of roe deer individuals and culling events were obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management - Forest Administration and the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. Moreover, the Law on Game and Hunting was used for analysis purposes. The status of roe deer population in the hunting grounds of Serbia is quite unsatisfactory, depending on the geographical area and wildlife management practices. In 2021, a total of 86,755 individuals were recorded in the area of Central Serbia, which accounts for 97.54% of the optimal population. However, the number of roe deer in the individual hunting grounds of the Central and Eastern hunting areas was above the optimal density, whereas the number of roe deer accounted for 88.58% and 89.12% of the optimal density in the individual hunting grounds of the Southern and Western hunting areas, respectively. The largest number of individuals per unit area (km2) was recorded in the Eastern (2.06) and Belgrade (2.02) hunting areas, whereas the smallest number of individuals per unit area (km2) was recorded in the Southern (1.02) and Western (1.34) hunting areas. The following issues were identified as major impediments to the management of roe deer population in the hunting grounds considered: legislative and regulatory instruments, non-compliance and non-enforcement of a large number of regulations, roe deer monitoring issues, poor hunting ground control, inapplicability of certain regulations in the field of veterinary medicine, environmental protection, unresolved issues of trophy and game meat export, lack of strategic planning (namely the hunting development strategies of the Republic of Serbia), lack of deer habitat monitoring methodology and rating methodology, and unprofessional planning and development of hunting ground management plans. The SWOT analysis performed emphasized the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of roe deer population management in Serbia.

Animal agency in wildlife conservation and management.

Wildlife conservation and management (WCM) practices have been historically drawn from a wide variety of academic fields, yet practitioners have been slow to engage with emerging conversations about animals as complex beings, whose individuality and sociality influence their relationships with humans. We propose an explicit acknowledgement of wild, nonhuman animals as active participants in WCM. We examined 190 studies of WCM interventions and outcomes to highlight 3 common assumptions that underpin many present approaches to WCM: animal behaviors are rigid and homogeneous; wildlife exhibit idealized wild behavior and prefer pristine habitats; and human-wildlife relationships are of marginal or secondary importance relative to nonhuman interactions. We found that these management interventions insufficiently considered animal learning, decision-making, individuality, sociality, and relationships with humans and led to unanticipated detrimental outcomes. To address these shortcomings, we synthesized theoretical advances in animal behavioral sciences, animal geographies, and animal legal theory that may help conservation professionals reconceptualize animals and their relationships with humans. Based on advances in these fields, we constructed the concept of animal agency, which we define as the ability of animals to actively influence conservation and management outcomes through their adaptive, context-specific, and complex behaviors that are predicated on their sentience, individuality, lived experiences, cognition, sociality, and cultures in ways that shape and reshape shared human-wildlife cultures, spaces, and histories. Conservation practices, such as compassionate conservation, convivial conservation, and ecological justice, incorporate facets of animal agency. Animal agency can be incorporated in conservation problem-solving by assessing the ways in which agency contributes to species' survival and by encouraging more adaptive and collaborative decision-making among human and nonhuman stakeholders.

Scientific Assessment of the Welfare of Trapped Mammals-Key Considerations for the Use of the Sharp and Saunders Humaneness Assessment Model.

Simple SummaryThe use of traps is key to the success of many wildlife management programs but the species trapped, type of trap used and its application will influence the impacts it has on animal welfare. Scientific assessment of the impacts of trapping on mammal welfare is necessary to justify the use of traps, aid trap selection, improve trap performance and develop international standards. The Sharp and Saunders humaneness assessment model was developed for the purpose of assessing the relative humaneness of a range of pest animal control methods and has been used to assess the welfare impacts of trapping on various mammal species. The model is based on the established Five Domains model, the structure of which represents the understanding that an animal’s welfare state arises due to the sum of its mental experiences which may include pain, breathlessness, thirst or fear, among many others. Here we make key recommendations for those wishing to apply the Sharp and Saunders model to scientifically assess the welfare impacts of traps. Consideration of these points will help optimize the value of information produced using the model to support ethical wildlife management practice and policy and retain social acceptance of management programs that involve trapping.Scientific assessment of the impacts of trapping on mammal welfare is necessary to inform cost-benefit analyses of using traps in wildlife management, improve trap performance and trapping processes and develop international trap standards. The Sharp and Saunders humaneness assessment model was developed specifically for assessing welfare impacts in vertebrate wildlife management and has been used to assess the impacts of trapping various mammals. It is a specific version of the more general Five Domains model for welfare assessment which is based on the understanding that welfare state reflects the sum of the animal’s mental experiences. Our experience of applying the Sharp and Saunders model allows us to make key recommendations for those wishing to use it. First, the exact parameters of the trapping scenario to be assessed must be decided. Second, assessments should be based on published data, as well as integrating both scientific and practitioner expertise to provide rigorous and relevant outcomes. Third, conclusions about welfare impacts should be based on the appropriate indicators. As far as is possible, mental experiences should be inferred using animal-based indicators, and some representation should be provided of the scorers’ confidence in the data on which assessment is based. Careful consideration of these points will help optimize the value of information produced using the model for wildlife management decision-making.

The spatial ecology of black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) in a protected mountainous grassland area

An animal’s ability to traverse a landscape and utilise available resources is vital for its survival. The movement patterns of an animal provide insight into space use, activity patterns and ecological requirements that are imperative for successful farming and wildlife management practices. Home ranges are often used as a measurement of space use, which provides a quantitative value of an animal’s movement patterns in relation to various biological factors. A factor that is often overlooked in the analysis of movement patterns is the effect of moon phase, despite its known impact on the activity and hunting success of nocturnal predators. We live-trapped, radio-collared and monitored five black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, South Africa, between 2018 and 2019 to determine the impact of various environmental factors on movement patterns. Annual home ranges varied between individuals, were larger in subadults and overlapped between three jackals. Space use and travel velocity suggested a crepuscular activity pattern with a reliance on nocturnal activity and limited diurnal activity. Individual space use suggested variation between moon phases, although overall variation was negligible. Jackals travelled farther during new moon, compared with full moon, with the most notable difference between 23:00 and 04:00. Our results suggest that jackal behaviour does not align with the predation risk hypothesis. Space use and travel velocities varied between seasons, possibly because of differences in activity during mating and pupping periods. Our study confirms the flexibility in jackal space use and suggests a possible relationship with moon phase. To properly understand movement patterns at an individual and population level, we encourage additional research about jackals and various environmental factors via multidisciplinary collaborations.