Carnivores

Rats thrive around humans, for good reason: They feed off crops and garbage and readily adapt to many settings, from farms to the world’s largest cities. To control them, people often resort to poisons. But chemicals that kill rats can also harm other animals. The most commonly used poisons are called anticoagulant rodenticides. They work by interfering with blood clotting in animals that consume them. These enticingly flavored bait blocks are placed outside of buildings, in small black boxes that only rats and mice can enter. But the poison remains in the rodents’ bodies, threatening larger animals that prey on them. My colleagues and I recently reviewed studies from around the world that sought to document wild mammal carnivores’ exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides. Many animals tested in these studies were already dead; others were alive and a part of other studies. Researchers detected rodenticides in about one-third of the animals in these analyses, i...

Hunting large carnivores is a contentious issue in wildlife management and conservation. It’s on the ballot in fall 2024 in Colorado, where voters will consider Proposition 127, a proposed ban on hunting and trapping of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx in the state. Wildlife agencies often use regulated hunting as a tool for controlling carnivore populations, reducing their impacts on vulnerable wildlife or minimizing the risk of conflict between carnivores and people, pets and livestock. But scientific studies have questioned how effectively recreational hunting achieves these goals. And public attitudes are shifting as participation in hunting declines. We direct Colorado State University’s Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence and Animal-Human Policy Center. Together with our colleague Benjamin Ghasemi, we recently surveyed Colorado residents about their perceptions of hunting mountain lions and black bears in the state. We found that support for hunting depen...

At the United Nations biodiversity conference that opens in Montreal on Dec. 7, 2022, nations aim to create a new global framework for transforming humanity’s relationship with nature. The conference logo features a human reaching to embrace a panda – but from an ecological perspective, a weasel or badger would be a more appropriate choice. Logo for the COP 15 conference in Montreal, which was delayed from its original 2020 date due to COVID-19. Convention on Biological Diversity, CC BY-ND Large mammals with widespread appeal, also known as charismatic megafauna, often represent the highest achievement in biodiversity protection. As the logic goes, saving the tiger, polar bear, wolf or lion means saving an entire ecosystem, since these species often have large ranges and may sit at the top of food chains. But research shows that, relatively speaking, many large charismatic species aren...