The conservation of large carnivores is a formidable challenge for biodiversity conservation. Using a data set on the past and current status of brown bears (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), gray wolves (Canis lupus), and wolverines (Gulo gulo) in European countries, we show that roughly one-third of mainland Europe hosts at least one large carnivore species, with stable or increasing abundance in most cases in 21st-century records. The reasons for this overall conservation success include protective legislation, supportive public opinion, and a variety of practices making coexistence between large carnivores and people possible. The European situation reveals that large carnivores and people can share the same landscape.

Dispersal influences the dynamics and persistence of populations, the distribution and abundance of species, and gives the communities and ecosystems their characteristic texture in space and time. The Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx is a medium‐sized solitary carnivore that has been re‐introduced in central Europe and currently occurs in rather small populations, where dispersal is believed to play a prominent role for the recolonization of unsettled areas and persistence of subpopulations. Between 1988 and 2001 the spatio‐temporal behaviour of sub‐adult Eurasian lynx was studied in two re‐introduced populations in Switzerland, based on 31 juveniles of which 24 were radio‐tagged to find out which factors influence dispersal. Age at independence ranged from 8.1 to 10.7 months and did not differ between populations or sex. Independence began from January to the beginning of May with a peak in April. After independence, sub‐adults stayed a few days in the maternal home range. Age at dispersal differed between the areas of origin and was possibly affected by sex and the presence of new progeny. Dispersers of both sexes established transient home ranges; however, only one male in the saturated population established a transient home range. Although only females took over the maternal home range, there was no significant sex bias in the proportion of individuals that dispersed in both populations. Successful dispersers settled in a territory at distances that differed between populations with effects of sex, but not condition. The mean dispersal distance in the high‐density population was 25.9 km compared to 63.1 km in the low‐density population. Dispersal distances in the high‐density population – shorter than those reported in other Eurasian lynx studies but comparable to those observed in an Iberian lynx population – are limited by habitat restrictions hindering connections with a neighbouring population.

Studying activity patterns and temporal overlap among carnivores and their putative prey is difficult because of their secretive and elusive nature. With large carnivores declining worldwide, it is imperative for conservation planning that we understand how large carnivores interact with their prey and competitors. Camera trapping offers a promising avenue to address this issue. We investigated temporal overlap between male and female leopards, their known and putative prey as well as their competitor, the spotted hyenas, in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. Data consisted of 4297 independent events from a 30 min interval criterion from 164 camera trap sites we sampled. Leopards were captured by camera traps throughout the day, with male and female leopards showing significantly different activity patterns (P < 0.001) indicating sexual segregation in activity patterns, with male leopards being more nocturnal than female leopards. Leopards had significantly different activity patterns from that of the majority of their prey, with yellow baboons, that displayed peak activity during midday, that had the least overlap. Moreover, both male and female leopards had significantly different activity patterns from that of spotted hyenas (P = <0.001), with female leopards appearing to be inactive during hours with peak hyena activity. We conclude that systematic camera trapping is a useful tool to study activity patterns and temporal niche interactions between sympatric carnivores and, to a lesser extent, their prey.

To estimate the potential population size of the Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx in the Jura Mountains and to assess possible corridors between this population and adjacent areas (the Vosges Mountains, the Black Forest and the Alps), we adapted a previously developed Geographic Information system (GIS) probability model for lynx distribution and extrapolated it over the entire mountain range. The model was based on knowledge of the habitat use and land tenure system of resident animals from the central part of the Jura Mountains, where lynx were followed by means of radio-telemetry. Corridors were computed in the GIS using a friction grid and a cost distance function. The friction value attributed to each land use variable was assessed from our observations of lynx dispersal. Our model predicts a breeding population in the Jura Mountains of 74-101 individuals and 51-79 individuals when continuous habitat patches of < 50 km2 are disregarded. The Jura population lies within the range of a viable population...

Use of photographic capture—recapture analyses to estimate abundance of species with distinctive natural marks has become an important tool for monitoring rare or cryptic species, or both. Two different methods are available to estimate density: nonspatial capture—recapture models where the trap polygon is buffered with the half or full mean maximum distance moved by animals captured at more than 1 trap (1/2 MMDM or MMDM, respectively); or spatial capture—recapture (SCR) models that explicitly incorporate movement into the model. We used data from radiotracked Eurasian lynx ( Lynx lynx ) in the northwestern Swiss Alps (NWSA) during a low (1.0 lynx/100 km2) and a high (1.9–2.1 lynx/100 km2) lynx population density to test if lynx space use was density dependent. Second, we compared lynx density estimates resulting from these 2 different methods using camera-trapping data collected during winters 2007–2008 and 2009–2010 in the NWSA. Our results indicated lynx space use was negatively correlated with density. Lynx density estimates in all habitats using MMDM (0.86 and 0.97 lynx/100 km2 in winters 2007–2008 and 2009–2010, respectively) were significantly lower than SCR model estimates, whereas there was no significant difference between SCR model (1.47 and 1.38) and 1/2 MMDM (1.37 and 1.51) density estimates. In the NWSA, which currently harbors the most abundant lynx population in Switzerland, 1/2 MMDM and SCR models provided more realistic lynx density estimates compared to the MMDM, which lies in the lower range of densities. Overall, the SCR model is preferable because it considers animal movements explicitly and is not biased by an informal estimation of the effective sampling area.