Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America

Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America

Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America Technical Review 12-01 August 2012 The Wildlife Society Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America Technical Review 12-01 March 2012 Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America Technical Review 12-01 March 2012 The Wildlife Society Technical Review Committee on the Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America James Peek (Chair) Shane Mahoney Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources Sustainable Development and Strategic Science Branch University of Idaho Department of Environment and Conservation Moscow, Idaho 83844-1136 USA St. John’s, Newfoundland A1B4J6 Canada Bruce Dale Craig Miller Alaska Department of Fish and Game Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources 1800 Glenn Highway University of Georgia Palmer, Alaska 99645 USA Athens, Georgia 30602 USA Hank Hristienko Dennis Murray Manitoba Wildlife and Ecosystem Protection Branch Department of Biology Box 24-200 Saulteaux Crescent Trent University Winnipeg, Manitoba R3J 3W3 Canada Peterborough, Ontario K9J7B8 Canada Lee Kantar Linda Olver Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Bureau of Wildlife Management Bangor, Maine 04401-5654 USA Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Madison, Wisconsin 53707 USA Kerrie Anne Loyd Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources Colleen Soulliere University of Georgia Sustainable Development and Strategic Science Branch Athens, Georgia 30602 USA Department of Environment and Conservation St. John’s, Newfoundland A1B4J6 Canada The Wildlife Society 5410 Grosvenor Lane, Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20814 This report is copyrighted by TWS, but individuals are granted permission to make single copies for noncommercial purposes. To view or download a PDF of this report, or to order hard copies, go to http://wildlife.org/TechnicalReview ISBN: 978-1-937504-10-6 TWS106 Large center photo: Radio-collared gray wolf (Credit: William Campbell/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) Top right: Collecting data from tranquilized grizzly bear in Glacier National Park prior to attaching a radio collar (Credit: National Park Service) Bottom left: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists collecting data and fitting a radio collar on a tranquilized mountain lion in Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana (Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) Bottom right: Coyote roaming Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve (Credit: Photo by George Joch/Courtesy Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois) Produced and distributed for The Wildlife Society by Worthy Shorts, Inc. 4 The Wildlife Society Technical Review 12–01 March 2012 FOREWORD ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Presidents of The Wildlife Society (TWS) oc- We acknowledge the support of TWS Presi- casionally appoint ad hoc committees to study dents in office during preparation of this report, and report on selected conservation issues. The including President Paul Krausman and Past reports ordinarily appear as technical reviews Presidents Tom Ryder, Bruce Leopold, Tom or position statements. Technical reviews pres- Franklin, Dan Svedarsky, and John Organ. ent technical information and the views of the Members of The Wildlife Society Council Paul appointed committee members, but not neces- Krausman, John McDonald, and Bruce Leopold sarily the views of their employers. provided comments and support. The Wildlife Society editors Laura Bies, Terra Rentz, and This technical review focuses on the manage- Christine Carmichael provided encouragement, ment of large mammalian carnivores and their invaluable suggestions, and edits. This review associated impacts on prey populations and was approved for development by then-Presi- public perception across North America. The re- dent John Organ in March 2007 and approved view is copyrighted by TWS, but individuals are for publication by current President Paul Kraus- granted permission to make single copies for man in February 2012. noncommercial purposes. All technical reviews are available in digital format on the TWS web A large share of the information in this report page, www.wildlife.org, and additional cop- is available from wildlife agencies across Cana- ies may be requested from: da and the United States. Much of the informa- tion is routinely obtained to assist in managing The Wildlife Society large carnivores and their ungulate prey. An 5410 Grosvenor Lane additional share of the information is supported Bethesda, MD 20814 by various wildlife agencies and developed by Phone: (301) 897-9770 others. We received exceptional cooperation Fax: (301) 530-2471 from people in these agencies when we request- [email protected] ed information. Citation: Peek, J., B. Dale, H. Hristienko, L. Humans are primarily focused on the con- Kantar, K. A. Loyd, S. Mahoney, C. Miller, D. temporary local situation they find themselves Murray, L. Olver, and C. Soulliere. 2012. Man- in. The wildlife resource, however, is affected agement of large mammalian carnivores in by past and present conditions and multi-scale North America. The Wildlife Society Technical influences. As a result, many of the actions Review 12-1. The Wildlife Society, Bethesda, intended to address an issue that is considered Maryland, USA. in unsatisfactory condition may be successful in the short term but may also have unintended future consequences. Our efforts were, thus, directed towards detecting large-scale trends over time in more reliable data sources, primar- ily harvest information, and in surveys of public attitudes towards large mammalian carnivores. The following people provided information and commentary from the various universities, organizations, provincial and state agencies, Northwest and Yukon Territories, and the Cana- dian and U. S. governments: Frank Addante, Jim Allen, Jerry Apker, Alan Baer, John Beecham, Ron Bjorge, Dean Cluff, Brad Compton, Kevin Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America 5 Craig, Vince Crichton, John DePue, Jean-Michel Jim Unsworth, Doug Updike, Victor Van Bal- DeVink, Randy Dibblee, John Elliott, Rich lenberghe, Larry VanDaele, John Vore, Nathan DeSimone, Brian Giddings, Tena Fox, Howard Webb, John Wehausen, Darrell Weybright, Golden, Barry Hale, Ian Hatter, Chris Heydon, Robert Wielgus, Wade Willis, and Karen Zhou. Jim Heffelfinger, Maurice Hornocker, Héléne Gary White suggested the statistical analysis and Jolicoeur, Maya Kepner, Eric Loft, Glenn Luther, provided the program that was used to analyze Ramona Maraj, Mike McGrath, Scott NcNay, the trends that are presented in the appendix. Robert Miller, Anthony Nette, Martin Obbard, Chad Bishop, Kim Brunt, Valerius Geist, Gerald Rolf Peterson, Ross Peck, Howard Quigley, Cal- Hales, Ian Hatter, Doug Heard, Gerry Kuzyk, vin Richardson, Eric Rominger, Larry Roy, Gary Bruce McLellan, Garth Mowat, Tom Paragi, Schroeder, Charles Schwartz, Tom Stephenson, Arthur Rodgers, and Sterling Miller provided Daniel Thompson, Ron Thompson, Conrad critical reviews of the final draft and their efforts Thiessen, Kim Titus, Brad Tokaruk, Tom Toman, are greatly appreciated. 6 The Wildlife Society Technical Review 12–01 March 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 INTRODUCTION 10 A Brief History 10 ATTITUDES TOWARDS PREDATORS 12 Attitudes towards Wolves and Wolf Reintroduction 13 Attitudes towards Coyotes 15 UNGULATE POPULATION DYNAMICS AND PREDATION 16 NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU: A CASE HISTORY 18 Early Investigations of Caribou Mortality 19 The Current Predator-Caribou Circumstance 20 COYOTE PREDATION ON DEER 22 Maine Coyote and Deer Investigations 27 MOUNTAIN LION MANAGEMENT 30 WOLF HARVESTS IN CANADA AND ALASKA 35 WOLVES IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION 39 WOLVES IN THE WESTERN GREAT LAKES REGION 41 MEXICAN GRAY WOLVES 42 BEAR HARVEST AND POPULATION MANAGEMENT 42 Black Bears 42 Human-Bear Conflicts 48 Brown Bears 49 PREDATOR MANAGEMENT TO BENEFIT SMALL, ISOLATED POPULATIONS 51 Desert Bighorn Sheep 51 Caribou at the Southern Limits of Their Range 53 Black-tailed Deer on Vancouver Island 53 WOLF AND BEAR CONTROL TO ENHANCE UNGULATE POPULATIONS IN ALASKA 54 Successful Wolf Control to Increase Ungulates 57 DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PREDATOR CONTROL PROGRAMS 58 RECOMMENDATIONS 60 CONCLUSION 61 LITERATURE CITED 65 APPENDIX 73 Management of Large Mammalian Carnivores in North America 7 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Mule deer harvests in selected states (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY) and provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan). The trend for AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, OR, UT, and WY is down over the 1980-2007 period (lnTotal harvest=69.79-0.029*year, F=69.49, P=0.000, adjR2=.725). Table 2. Summary of investigations reviewed by Ballard et al. (2001) on predation effects on mule deer, black-tailed deer, and white-tailed deer. Table 3. Coyote harvests by USDA APHIS Wildlife Services by all methods, 1990-2007, for 12 states that constitute 83% of total kill. Table 4. Coyote take as fur in 9 Canadian Provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan), 1980-2008. Table 5. Mountain lion harvests in western North America with comparative harvests from Al- berta and British Columbia, Canada, 1990-2007. Table 6. Sex composition of mountain lion harvests in hunting units 20A, 26, and 27 in the Frank Church River-Of-No-Return Wilderness and adjacent areas of limited access in central Idaho, using 3-year averages (Nadeau 2007a, Power and Hemker 1985, Rachael and Nadeau 2002). Table 7. Wolf harvest in Alaska and Canada (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba,

View Full Text

Details

  • File Type
    pdf
  • Upload Time
    -
  • Content Languages
    English
  • Upload User
    Anonymous/Not logged-in
  • File Pages
    77 Page
  • File Size
    -

Download

Channel Download Status
Express Download Enable

Copyright

We respect the copyrights and intellectual property rights of all users. All uploaded documents are either original works of the uploader or authorized works of the rightful owners.

  • Not to be reproduced or distributed without explicit permission.
  • Not used for commercial purposes outside of approved use cases.
  • Not used to infringe on the rights of the original creators.
  • If you believe any content infringes your copyright, please contact us immediately.

Support

For help with questions, suggestions, or problems, please contact us