Pyne Teagan, Haering Ron, Sriram Aditi, Lorigan Shona, Shine Richard, Jolly Chris J
School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, NSW Government, Parramatta, New South Wales 2150, Australia.
R Soc Open Sci. 2024 Oct 2;11(10):240512. doi: 10.1098/rsos.240512. eCollection 2024 Oct.
As urbanization expands globally, human-wildlife interactions will inevitably increase. Here, we analysed 10 years of wildlife rehabilitation records of squamate (snake and lizard) reptiles ( = 37 075) from the Greater Sydney region, New South Wales, Australia, to explore their value to address management and conservation issues. Rescues were highly non-random regarding taxonomic focus, spatial occurrences and temporal trends due to the combined influence of (i) reptile phenology and behaviour and (ii) human perceptions of reptiles. Seasonal peaks in rescues reflect reptile and, to a lesser extent, human activity. Spatial patterns of rescues were informative about distributions and presence of easily identified taxa but were primarily driven by human presence. Larger squamate species were rescued more frequently, potentially reflecting a perception of greater danger or rescue priority. While uncommon species were often misidentified, accurate reports of these taxa may guide targeted surveys. The value of these data for conservation and management could be enhanced by emphasizing reptile identification training of volunteers and use of applications for informed species identification. Wildlife rehabilitation data offer a cost-effective means of quantifying thousands of human-reptile interactions, identifying foci (in both time and space) of human-wildlife conflict such as snakebite risk and roadkill-related reptile mortality.
随着城市化在全球范围内的扩张，人类与野生动物的互动将不可避免地增加。在此，我们分析了澳大利亚新南威尔士州大悉尼地区10年的有鳞目（蛇和蜥蜴）爬行动物野生动物康复记录（共37075条），以探讨这些记录在解决管理和保护问题方面的价值。由于（i）爬行动物的物候和行为以及（ii）人类对爬行动物的认知的综合影响，救援在分类重点、空间分布和时间趋势方面具有高度的非随机性。救援的季节性高峰反映了爬行动物的活动，在较小程度上也反映了人类活动。救援的空间模式有助于了解容易识别的分类单元的分布和存在情况，但主要是由人类活动所驱动。较大的有鳞目物种被救援的频率更高，这可能反映出人们认为其危险性更大或救援优先级更高。虽然不常见的物种经常被误认，但对这些分类单元的准确报告可能会指导有针对性的调查。通过加强对志愿者的爬行动物识别培训以及使用有助于物种识别的应用程序，可以提高这些数据在保护和管理方面的价值。野生动物康复数据提供了一种经济有效的方法来量化数千次人类与爬行动物的互动，识别如蛇咬伤风险和与道路死亡相关的爬行动物死亡率等人类与野生动物冲突的焦点（在时间和空间上）。
