Population trends in the world?s largest carnivores

THOMAS JOHNSON; PAULA CRUZ; NICK ISAAC; MANUELA GONZALEZ-SUAREZ; AGUSTÍN PAVIOLO

Kuala lumpur

Congreso; International Congress for Conservation Biology,; 2019

Society for Conservation Biology

Mammals from the order Carnivoraare conservation flagships and ecologically important species, but their conservationstatus is unclear, with some populations declining and others recovering. Here we present results from a global evaluation ofpopulation trends available for the 87 species in the families Felidae, Canidae, Hyaenidae, and Ursidae. We conducted a systematicliterature search for trends, which produced 727 qualitative descriptions (by the authors), of which 436 were quantified as estimates ofannual population change (λ). While relatively numerous, these data represent less than half of the known species (N=42) and 30% ofthe world?s countries, spanning a temporal window from 1865 ? 2018. Of the 727 qualitative trends, 23% of populations declined,26% were considered stable, and the majority (51%) increased. The quantitative estimates show a similar trend under meta-analysis,with a significant-positive overall population trend (5% annual growth), and growth in all families except Felidae. Evaluating datawithin continents, both Africa and Asia had significant population growth, whilst all other continents were stable. However, welacked power to detect trends in many regions, for example, we only have four estimates in South America (74 times less than NorthAmerica). Our study provides a first global assessment of trends in large carnivores which reveals a potentially hopeful situation.