ABSTRACT Removal of invasive predators is widely used to mitigate their impacts on native species, yet the conservation outcomes are rarely quantified, limiting evidence‐based assessments of these conservation actions. We evaluated the outcomes of a coordinated, landscape‐scale American mink ( Neogale vison ) eradication programme encompassing 18,500 km 2 in eastern England, UK. Over 4 years, more than 1500 remotely monitored traps recorded captures of invasive mink and native water voles ( Arvicola amphibius ), enabling robust evaluation of prey responses to invasive predator removal. Water vole distribution and relative abundance increased with sustained removal efforts, facilitated by water vole presence in neighbouring regions, but declined with mink presence. By the end of the study, no mink captures occurred within the core eradication region, whereas water vole captures nearly doubled. These findings show that the sustained, systematic predator removal promoted region‐wide recovery of a native prey even before total eradication was achieved. Additionally, our results highlight the importance of eradication efforts to operate within and surrounding native prey populations. In doing so, this study provides rare, landscape‐scale empirical evidence of the ecological benefits of invasive predator removal during eradication, supporting its role as an effective conservation strategy to promote the recovery of native species.
ABSTRACT Human‐tiger conflict is widely assumed to intensify as tiger populations recover, posing a major challenge for the conservation of tigers across its range. Despite the influence of this assumption on management and public perception, it has rarely been examined using range‐wide evidence. We conducted a broad, exploratory synthesis of associations between tiger population trends and reported conflict incidents across ten tiger range countries between 2010 and 2025, a period marked by substantial global tiger recovery. Using harmonised country‐year data compiled from heterogeneous sources, we assessed whether increases in tiger abundance were consistently associated with changes in human fatalities, livestock depredation, and overall conflict incidents, and examined how selected ecological, anthropogenic, and management covariates aligned with observed patterns. Across the compiled dataset, tiger population size showed no consistent associations except for a weak positive association with human fatalities, although this relationship was highly variable and was sensitive to a small number of observations. In contrast, human population density was positively associated with human fatalities, while protected area coverage was negatively associated with human fatalities. Wild prey density showed no detectable association with any conflict outcome at the national scale. Given the aggregated, partially interpolated, and non‐experimental nature of the data, all detected relationships are interpreted as associative rather than causal. Nonetheless, our findings contradict the pervasive narrative that tiger recovery inevitably escalates conflict. Instead, conflict patterns appear contingent on human exposure, land‐use context, and management conditions, rather than carnivore abundance alone. These findings highlight the importance of integrating population recovery with strategies that reduce human–tiger interaction to support long‐term coexistence and conservation of tigers in shared landscapes.
ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose an operational framework for Jaguar Conservation Units (JCUs), emphasizing the role of private rural properties in conserving jaguar populations in Brazil while mitigating human–jaguar conflicts and supporting the implementation of payments for the species' environmental services. Jaguars ( Panthera onca ) prey on domestic livestock, that can lead to retaliatory killings of jaguars by ranchers. In this context, our study aims to analyze the environmental and economic parameters associated with the ecosystem services provided by jaguars, in order to use JCUs as a starting point to develop a Payment for Environmental Services (PES) scheme to support jaguar conservation. This would involve promoting forest code compliance, maintaining habitat connectivity, and compensating cattle predation, using data from Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), Brazil. Based on spatial analyses of occurrence records, we identified and reshaped three JCUs in MS and evaluated the land use patterns within each one, discussing the basis to implement a PES scheme. Our findings demonstrate the advantages of implementing such schemes and reveal that the cost of maintaining jaguar populations through a PES, with funds from several independent sources, would be feasible and important for one of the largest jaguar populations in Brazil.
