Quota hunting of Eurasian lynx in Norway: Patterns of hunter selection, hunter efficiency and monitoring accuracy

Abstract

Harvesting large carnivores is often a controversial issue and thus requires a higher precision than other types of recreational harvest. Despite this, management programmes are often initiated based on very limited knowledge about the state of the population and the composition and magnitude of the harvest. Here we analyse patterns of lynx harvest in Norway based on harvest data from 1994 to 2009. We found clear signs of sex-biased harvest rates, with males generally being more at risk. Further, harvest mortality rates increased with age among males but not among females. In general, the degree of quota filling was high, but there was a tendency for decreasing quota filling with increasing quotas. A population reconstruction of the Norwegian lynx population (1994-2004) based on a modified cohort analysis closely tracked the development in the official monitoring data, suggesting that the managers have access to relatively good information about the development of the population, at least at a larger spatial scale. Despite this, the population trajectory showed large temporal variation, and time lags in the management's decision-making process are a likely cause of the observed patterns in the Norwegian lynx population. © 2011 The Author(s).