TRANSLOCATION OF CARNIVORES AS A METHOD FOR MANAGING PROBLEM ANIMALS - A REVIEW

Translocation of individual carnivores has been a standard management tool for decades in North America and southern Africa in response to l ivestock depredation and other conflict behaviours. As carnivore popul ations across Europe begin to increase it is expected that management problems will also increase. Before translocation becomes established as a management tool in Europe its success needs to be reviewed. In ge neral, there has been very little follow-up of translocated animals. A lmost no data exist on the subsequent levels of damage after transloca tion. Large carnivores have shown a consistent ability to return to th e site of capture over distances of up to 400 km. Even those individua ls that do not succeed in returning home roam over very large distance s, best measured in units of hundreds of kilometres. Very few individu als remain at the release sites. Survival of translocated animals has occasionally been shown to be goer, often as a result of the large mov ements. In general, there needs to be a large area (hundreds or thousa nds of square kilometres) without conflict potential when the individu als can be released for the strategy to work. When such areas are not available, management efforts should concentrate on reducing conflict potential, or, where this is not practical, lethal control.