Browsing by Subject "Lynx lynx"

After drastic declines in large carnivores’ populations globally, conservation efforts have been successful, and predators’ populations are in recovery. However, their comeback has led to new interactions with locals, generating different conflicts. Two main approaches have been considered to mitigate these conflicts, those being the land sparing and land sharing models, however, the land sparing model requires great extents of protected areas, areas that in Europe are missing, therefore forcing a call for the land sharing model. In Finland, this approach has generated debates among different stakeholders, the outcomes of this debate shaping the fate for the four species: brown bear (Ursus arctos), grey wolf (Canis lupus), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolverine (Gulo gulo). Attitudes towards those species can be used to explore the drivers of the conflicts, however, only few studies have explored this context, considering the ecological and social dimension separately. In addition, the ecotourism industry has been recently recognized as a new stakeholder in the Finnish large carnivore’s context, but the effects of its activities were assessed only ecologically. Therefore, with this study I aimed to explore the attitudes of locals from a specific region of Finland towards the four large carnivores’ species, and to assess the different drivers of those species, through a combination of field questionnaires, social variables and large carnivores’ population data. I explored potential correlates of the differences in attitudes, adding also the spatial effect of ecotourism over the socio-ecological factors. I predicted attitudes to vary among species, having on one side the brown bear with positive attitudes, in contrast the wolf with negative attitudes, while neutral attitudes towards the lynx and wolverine. I also expected to find more negative attitudes in smaller localities rather than in localities with a greater human population density. Also, I explored whether the ecotourism activities have a positive or negative effect over the locals’ attitude towards carnivores, expecting the ecotourism industry to bring positive attitudes in nearby localities. As result, attitudes towards the four different species varied significantly, the attitudes towards each different species having different drivers, with the human population size being important for wolverines and wolves, while the status for bear and lynx populations. The ecotourism had an effect only on bear attitudes, being positively correlated (closer the ecotourism activities were, more positive the attitudes are). To mitigate the large carnivores-human conflict in Finland, a community approach is not the solution, since the different origins of the attitudes ‘drivers. However, the attitudes among species are positively correlated, consequently, by ameliorate the attitudes towards one species, also the others will benefit. Finally, by inducing a proper management within the ecotourism industry and promoting more the respective activity on a national level, the ecotourism can have a positive impact and get a positive role in the Finnish conflict.

In my Master’s Thesis I researched young lynxes ́ (Lynx lynx) use of habitat during dispersal. When analysing different research materials, I found out what kind of habitats and topography young lynxes use during their dispersal. There haven ́t been many researchs in this area in Finland before, therefore this research is providing new information to the subject. The Natural Resources Institute in Finland provided the tracking materials for the research. In this work I have three research questions. 1.) Does different habitat types affect to dispersal and does the use of habitat types vary between male and female? 2.) Does topography affect to dispersal and how does the topography classes are divided between male and female? 3.) Which sex disperses further? The studied area was Southern Finland, below the city of Jyväskylä. My research material contained nine male and seven female lynxes. The material was collected during years 2008 – 2014. Lynxes in the study had a GPS -collar, enabling position tracking. The gathered positioning points were transferred to ArcGIS 10.3.1 geographic program. Besides positioning points, the Corine Land Cover -2012 habitat map and DEM (Digital elevation model) topography were used in the study. I classified Corine materials to eight different categories and DEM materials set to twenty different categories. I converted the lynxes ́ positioning points into trails. The trail zone was set to four kilometres. Also, an individual zone with a radius of ten meters was set for each positioning point. When analysing these zones, I was able to find out what kind of habitats and topography lynxes use during dispersal. The length of the dispersal was calculated in two ways: A1-B1 the length of the dispersal was the distance between the start and end points. A2-B2 the length of the dispersal was the total length between all positioning points. I used the Mann Whitney -U test for the statistic testing. The results of this study show that male and female lynxes ́ use of habitats in the research area was divided evenly. Two classes showed statistically significant results: females favour peatlands in four kilometers dispersal trail zone. In ten meters positioning point zone females favour more coniferous forest. There were no special characteristics in males ́ use of habitats. The results of composition analyze show that lynxes favour mixed- and coniferous forests and fields. Selection of habitats wasn’t random. There were no difference in the use of topography between males and females, although one topography class was statistically significant. Mainly lynxes favour higher topography. The results show that males disperse further than females. There was, however, one female, whose dispersal was abnormally longer when compared to the other females. There was a strong positive correlation between the total length of the dispersal and the time used for the dispersal Generally there was no difference between the linearity of the dispersal trails of males and females. The results of this Master’s Thesis are used in the national lynx research project.