China News Service, Beijing, July 22 (Reporter Sun Zifa) Springer Nature's open-access academic journal "Scientific Reports" recently published a conservation research paper reminding that effective national and international regulations are needed to reverse large carnivores (such as tigers, wolves, and eagles) populations decline, reducing their risk of extinction.
According to the paper, the researchers found that only 12 of the 362 species assessed, mostly marine mammals, showed a real improvement in extinction risk.
Carnivores protected by international regulations were 6.8 times more likely to have a reduced risk of extinction, and those with controlled hunting programmes were 3 times more likely to have a reduced risk of extinction.
Large carnivores have important roles in ecosystems, but their shared characteristics, such as the need for larger living areas, lower reproduction rates, and a greater likelihood of conflict with humans, make conservation of large carnivores particularly difficult.
Co-corresponding authors Kurt E. Ingeman and Adrian C. Stier of the University of California's School of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology and their collaborators used existing databases to 362 carnivore species were identified in 6 major taxonomic groups (sharks and rays, bony fish, amphibians and reptiles, birds, terrestrial mammals, and marine mammals).
Species on this list include leopards, yellowfin tuna, prairie eagles, and ganga crocodiles, among others.
They collected data on population trends and 2019 extinction risk status from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) database, reporting 137 (37.8%) species of large carnivores considered threatened (classified as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered); marine Mammals account for the lowest proportion of threatened species (26.5%), but 60.9% of sharks and rays on the list are threatened.
The authors of the paper then assessed the population recovery status of large carnivores based on whether the IUCN listed population growth trends and whether their IUCN status had improved since the first assessment: 39 species (10.7%) showed one or both of these two factors. All recovered, although this improvement was concentrated in marine mammals such as humpback whales and northern sea lions; among terrestrial mammals, only the Iberian lynx met either recovery criteria.
Finally, the authors compared patterns of targeted conservation actions, such as habitat protection and hunting restrictions, with whether the species' populations showed signs of recovery.
They argue that national and international regulations and the identification of protected areas are associated with a reduction in the risk of extinction of carnivore species, and these findings offer a glimmer of hope that declines in large carnivore populations may be reversed.
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