{"id":2795,"date":"2014-12-31T01:59:28","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T01:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=2795"},"modified":"2016-08-20T15:12:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T15:12:11","slug":"if-you-go-down-to-the-woods-today-youre-in-for-a-big-surprise-europes-bears-are-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/if-you-go-down-to-the-woods-today-youre-in-for-a-big-surprise-europes-bears-are-back\/","title":{"rendered":"If you go down to the woods today you\u2019re in for a big surprise \u2013 Europe\u2019s bears are back"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jocelyn Timperley<\/a>, The Conversation<\/em><\/p>\n

In a rare conservation success story, research has shown that numbers of wild large carnivores in the continent have been steadily increasing and a third of the European mainland now has at least one kind of large carnivore.<\/p>\n

There are an estimated 17,000 brown bears, 12,000 wolves, 9,000 lynx and 1,250 wolverines living in Europe \u2013 nowhere near historical levels, but a healthy amount all the same. But what\u2019s more surprising is that these populations are found in the same places as people.<\/p>\n

In a new study in the journal Science<\/a> containing the most exhaustive data set ever collected on large carnivores in Europe, Guillaume Chapron<\/a> and colleagues found that not only are all four species surviving in human-dominated landscapes, but their populations are generally stable or even increasing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Move over Hugh Jackman, this is a real wolverine.<\/span>
\nNH53<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The results could be considered surprising. With its dense human population and highly developed landscape, Europe isn\u2019t exactly the place you would expect to find healthy populations of wolves and bears. But the study has confirmed that Europe has actually has a higher density of wolves than the lower 48 states of the US.<\/p>\n

Europe success story<\/h2>\n

So what is Europe doing right? The paper identifies several combining factors. Key legislation \u2013 such as the Bern Convention<\/a> and the Habitats Directive<\/a> \u2013 has given these animals at least some legal protection across Europe.<\/p>\n

In addition, the large numbers<\/a> of herbivores such as deer and bison needed to sustain carnivore populations have made a comeback. And large numbers of people have moved to cities<\/a>, lowering human impact on wildlife in the countryside.<\/p>\n

But Europe\u2019s conservation model is the real key to its success. Europe has developed a model of co-existence of people with predators \u2013 and sustainable populations of large carnivores are now reappearing in places where people live.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The lynx is Europe\u2019s largest cat.<\/span>
\nMiha Krofel<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the US conservation is based on the principle of wilderness\u201d, says Chapron, \u201cwhich is the idea that wild animals such as large carnivores are supposed to be out there far away in unspoiled, undisturbed areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if this model was applied in Europe, the continent wouldn\u2019t have any large carnivores; the protected areas are simply too small<\/a> to allow for self-sustaining populations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past there was a big push for conservationists to use the protected area approach, where they believed that wildlife could only really exist away from humans,\u201c said Niki Rust, a researcher in human-wildlife conflict. \u201cBut the study clearly shows even species that might seem annoying \u2013 such as large carnivores \u2013 are coexisting with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about Britain\u2019s bears?<\/h2>\n

So with mainland Europe witnessing a shining conservation success story, will the UK \u2013 currently home to no wild large carnivores at all \u2013 be next? It\u2019s tricky. Though people may be largely supportive of reintroducing wild predators, there are several serious concerns.<\/p>\n

Fear is a big factor, says Robert Young, a wildlife conservation expert at the University of Salford. Says Young: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter where you go in the world, people are scared of having large carnivores nearby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young thinks this fear, escalated by the headlines any attack by a wild animal inevitably brings, makes people lose perspective. \u201cThe road system is probably thousands of times more dangerous than co-existing with these carnivores and yet we don\u2019t have people saying we must fence off the roads,\u201d said Young.<\/p>\n

There are also differences from mainland Europe. Britain has an extremely high human population density and also eradicated its large carnivore population far earlier<\/a> than many places in mainland Europe.<\/p>\n

Says Rust: \u201cPeople have lived without them for so long that they don\u2019t know how to exist with them. I don\u2019t think that in the next 50 or 100 years we will see large carnivores come back to the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Young is more optimistic: \u201cMany countries in the world deal with livestock and with having these carnivores around so I don\u2019t think these problems are insurmountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there could be advantages to reintroducing these animals in the UK. Deer can have a big impact<\/a> on native forests due to their selective browsing on young trees. As well as helping to control numbers of deer, the presence of wolves may encourage<\/a> deer to steer clear of forested areas where they are more vulnerable to wolf attacks.<\/p>\n

New questions raised<\/h2>\n

Now we know modern Europe can sustain populations of large carnivores, the inevitable question then becomes: how many are actually wanted? Is the minimum amount to provide a sustainable genetic pool ideal? Or should it be as many as possible?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

No bears in Britain \u2013 distribution of Europe\u2019s large carnivores in 2011.<\/span>
\nSciencemag<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it will be different for different groups of people,\u201d said Rust. \u201cSo trying to work out how many we want is going to be very tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Large carnivores can be costly to sustain. In an effort to gain sometimes reluctant acceptance of them, governments have set up various schemes, such as compensation for livestock killed or financial rewards for the number of predators in an area. Between 1992 and 1998, the European Union paid out \u20ac1.37m<\/a> in compensation for livestock damage by predators.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarnivores can be troublesome neighbours,\u201d said Chapron. \u201cSo we have conflict: we have conflict with livestock farming, hunters \u2013 it can be difficult to co-exist with predators.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study raises another question: the abandonment of agricultural land<\/a> in parts of Europe may be good for carnivores \u2013 but, as Young says, the continent\u2019s increased reliance on imported food suggests that: \u201cas agricultural land increases in developing countries, it\u2019s obviously going to reduce the capacity of animals such as carnivores in those countries to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

So maybe the comeback in carnivores in parts of Europe is coming at a cost to wild animals in other parts of the world. But the key message of the study remains a promising one: there\u2019s no need to choose between humans and wildlife \u2013 you can have both.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jocelyn Timperley, The Conversation In a rare conservation success story, research has shown that numbers of wild large carnivores in the continent have been steadily increasing and a third of the European mainland now has at least one kind of large carnivore. There are an estimated 17,000 brown bears, 12,000 wolves, 9,000 lynx and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":6778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6779,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions\/6779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}