The DOI matches its Crossref record; 35 of the 35 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Predator control should not be a shot in the dark
Open accessAbstract
Livestock owners traditionally use various non‐lethal and lethal methods to protect their domestic animals from wild predators. However, many of these methods are implemented without first considering experimental evidence of their effectiveness in mitigating predation‐related threats or avoiding ecological degradation. To inform future policy and research on predators, we systematically evaluated evidence for interventions against carnivore (canid, felid, and ursid) predation on livestock in North American and European farms. We also reviewed a selection of tests from other continents to help assess the global generality of our findings. Twelve published tests – representing five non‐lethal methods and 7 lethal methods – met the accepted standard of scientific inference (random assignment or quasi‐experimental case‐control) without bias in sampling, treatment, measurement, or reporting. Of those twelve, prevention of livestock predation was demonstrated in six tests (four non‐lethal and two lethal), whereas counterintuitive increases in predation were shown in two tests (zero non‐lethal and two lethal); the remaining four (one non‐lethal and three lethal) showed no effect on predation. Only two non‐lethal methods (one associated with livestock‐guarding dogs and the other with a visual deterrent termed “fladry”) assigned treatments randomly, provided reliable inference, and demonstrated preventive effects. We recommend that policy makers suspend predator control efforts that lack evidence for functional effectiveness and that scientists focus on stringent standards of evidence in tests of predator control.
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Cites
Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth
Estes, J. A., Terborgh, J., Brashares, J. S., Power, M. E., Berger, J., Bond, W. J., Carpenter, S. R., Essington, T. E., Holt, R. D., Jackson, J. B. C., et al. (2011) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1205106 · Cited by 4,087 · cited 1×
“Depletion of apex consumers, which include most large- bodied predators, has led to the degradation of ecosystems and disruption of vital ecological processes worldwide (Estes et al. 2011; Ripple et al. 2014).”
BackgroundStatus and Ecological Effects of the World’s Largest Carnivores
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Recovery of large carnivores in Europe’s modern human-dominated landscapes
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Self-citationHuman‐Carnivore Conflict and Perspectives on Carnivore Management Worldwide
TREVES, A., & KARANTH, K. U. (2003) · Conservation Biology · doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2003.00059.x · Cited by 1,618
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Should agricultural policies encourage land sparing or wildlife-friendly farming?
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Translocation of carnivores as a method for managing problem animals: a review
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Coyote Depredation Control: An Interface between Biology and Management
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Participatory Planning of Interventions to Mitigate Human–Wildlife Conflicts
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Self-citation
Cited by
Managing conflict between large carnivores and livestock
van Eeden, L. M., Crowther, M. S., Dickman, C. R., Macdonald, D. W., Ripple, W. J., Ritchie, E. G., & Newsome, T. M. (2018) · Conservation Biology · doi:10.1111/cobi.12959 · Cited by 351
Carnivore conservation needs evidence-based livestock protection
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Connecting animal and human cognition to conservation
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Metadata
- Authors
- Treves, A., Krofel, M., & McManus, J.
- Venue
- Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-09
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 380-388
- ISSN
- 1540-9295 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-9309
- OpenAlex
- W2517685335
- Cited by
- 257
- References
- 35
- FWCI
- 21.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
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- Treves, A., Krofel, M., & McManus, J. (2016). Predator control should not be a shot in the dark. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1312
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
