| Title: |
Transboundary Monitoring of the Wolf Alpine Population over 21 Years and Seven Countries |
| Authors: |
Marucco, Francesca (University of Turin); Duchamp, Christophe (Office Français de la Biodiversité); Reinhardt, Ilka (Lupus - German Institute for Wolf Monitoring and Research / Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main); Avanzinelli, Elisa (Centro Grandi Carnivori); Chapron, Guillaume (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences); Knauer, Felix (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna); Walter, Theresa (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna); Rauer, Georg (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna); Černe, Rok (Slovenia Forest Service); Potočnik, Hubert (University of Ljubljana); Manz, Ralph (KORA-Carnivore Ecology and Wildlife Management); Zimmermann, Fridolin (KORA-Carnivore Ecology and Wildlife Management / University of Lausanne) |
| Source: |
Animals 13(22) (2023) |
| Publisher Information: |
MDPI |
| Publication Year: |
2023 |
| Subject Terms: |
Long-Distance Dispersal; Canis-Lupus; Estimating Abundance; Conservation; Dynamics; Wolves; Apennines; Recovery; Wildlife |
| Description: |
Wolves have large spatial requirements and their expansion in Europe is occurring over national boundaries, hence the need to develop monitoring programs at the population level. Wolves in the Alps are defined as a functional population and management unit. The range of this wolf Alpine population now covers seven countries: Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Liechtenstein and Germany, making the development of a joint and coordinated monitoring program particularly challenging. In the framework of the Wolf Alpine Group (WAG), researchers developed uniform criteria for the assessment and interpretation of field data collected in the frame of different national monitoring programs. This standardization allowed for data comparability across borders and the joint evaluation of distribution and consistency at the population level. We documented the increase in the number of wolf reproductive units (packs and pairs) over 21 years, from 1 in 1993-1994 up to 243 units in 2020-2021, and examined the pattern of expansion over the Alps. This long-term and large-scale approach is a successful example of transboundary monitoring of a large carnivore population that, despite administrative fragmentation, provides robust indexes of population size and distribution that are of relevance for wolf conservation and management at the transnational Alpine scale. |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| File Description: |
application/pdf |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
isPartOf:https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:605[Open Access Publications]; https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:2576 |
| DOI: |
10.3390/ani13223551 |
| Availability: |
https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13223551; https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:2576 |
| Rights: |
CC BY 4.0 International ; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.A73DF17D |
| Database: |
BASE |