1.A major challenge in biodiversity conservation is to facilitate viable populations of large apex
predators in ecosystems where they were recently driven to ecological extinction due to resource
conflict with humans.
2. Monetary compensation for losses of livestock due to predation is currently a key instrument to
encourage human–carnivore coexistence. However, a lack of quantitative estimates of livestock losses
due to predation leads to disagreement over the practise of compensation payments. This
disagreement sustains the human–carnivore conflict.
3. The level of depredation on year-round, free-ranging, semi-domestic reindeer by large carnivores in
Fennoscandia has been widely debated over several decades. In Norway, the reindeer herders claim
that lynx and wolverine cause losses of tens of thousands of animals annually and cause negative
population growth in herds. Conversely, previous research has suggested that monetary predator
compensation can result in positive population growth in the husbandry, with cascading negative
effects of high grazer densities on the biodiversity in tundra ecosystems.
4. We utilized a long-term, large-scale dataset to estimate the relative importance of lynx and
wolverine predation and density-dependent and climatic food limitation on claims for losses,
recruitment and population growth rates in Norwegian reindeer husbandry.
5. Claims of losses increased with increasing predator densities, but with no detectable effect on
population growth rates. Density-dependent and climatic effects on claims of losses, recruitment and
population growth rates, were much stronger than the effects of variation in lynx and wolverine
densities.
6. Synthesis and applications. Our analysis provides a quantitative basis for predator compensation
and estimation of the costs of reintroducing lynx and wolverine in areas with free-ranging semidomestic
reindeer. We outline a potential path for conflict management which involves adaptive
monitoring programs, open access to data, herder involvement, and development of management
strategy evaluation (MSE) models to disentangle complex responses including multiple stakeholders
and individual harvester decisions.
depredation, human–carnivore conflict, MODIS, onset of spring, plant productivity,
predator compensation, Rangifer
