Merz Leandra M, von Hohenberg Bernhard Clemm, Bergmann Nicolas T, Bruskotter Jeremy T, Carter Neil H
Department of Geography, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA.
School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Sci Adv. 2025 Aug 22;11(34):eadu8945. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adu8945. Epub 2025 Aug 20.
Expanding gray wolf () populations in Europe and North America contribute to increased risks of livestock predation, which can threaten human livelihoods and lead government agencies to target wolves for lethal removal. Public wolf hunting is a highly contentious strategy for mitigating these risks, yet few empirical studies examine its effectiveness in doing so. Using difference-in-differences and structural equation modeling of data from the northwestern US between 2005 and 2021, we analyzed impacts of wolf hunting on livestock predation by wolves and government removal of wolves in the same year and with a 1-year time lag while controlling for social and environmental variables. We found that public wolf hunting had a small negative effect on livestock predation but had no effect on government lethal removal of wolves in the same or subsequent years. Our findings challenge the assumption that wolf hunting is an effective management strategy for reducing livestock predation and lethal removal.
欧洲和北美的灰狼（）数量不断增加，导致牲畜被捕食的风险上升，这可能威胁到人类生计，并促使政府机构将狼作为捕杀目标。公众猎狼是减轻这些风险的一项极具争议性的策略，但很少有实证研究考察其在这方面的有效性。利用2005年至2021年美国西北部的数据，通过差分法和结构方程模型，我们分析了猎狼对同年及滞后1年狼对牲畜的捕食以及政府捕杀狼的影响，同时控制了社会和环境变量。我们发现，公众猎狼对牲畜捕食有轻微负面影响，但对同年或随后几年政府捕杀狼没有影响。我们的研究结果挑战了猎狼是减少牲畜捕食和捕杀狼的有效管理策略这一假设。
