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1 June 2011 Forecasting Environmental Hazards and the Application of Risk Maps to Predator Attacks on Livestock
Adrian Treves, Kerry A. Martin, Adrian P. Wydeven, Jane E. Wiedenhoeft
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Abstract

Environmental hazards are distributed in nonrandom patterns; therefore, many biologists work to predict future hazard locations from the locations of past incidents. Predictive spatial models, or risk maps, promise early warning and targeted prevention of nonnative species invasion, disease spread, or wildlife damage. The prevention of hazards safeguards both humans and native biodiversity, especially in the case of conflicts with top predators. Top predators play essential ecological roles and maintain biodiversity, but they can also threaten human life and livelihood, which leads people to eradicate predator populations. In the present article, we present a risk map for gray wolf (Canis lupus) attacks on livestock in Wisconsin between 1999 and 2006 that correctly identified risk in 88% of subsequent attack sites from 2007 to 2009. More-open habitats farther from any forest and closer to wolf pack ranges were the riskiest for livestock. Prediction promotes prevention. We recommend that the next generation of risk mappers employ several criteria for model selection, validate model predictions against data not used in model construction before publication, and integrate predictors from organismal biology alongside human and environmental predictors.

© 2011 by American Institute of Biological Sciences. All rights reserved. Request permission to photocopy or reproduce article content at the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions Web site at www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp.
Adrian Treves, Kerry A. Martin, Adrian P. Wydeven, and Jane E. Wiedenhoeft "Forecasting Environmental Hazards and the Application of Risk Maps to Predator Attacks on Livestock," BioScience 61(6), 451-458, (1 June 2011). https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2011.61.6.7
Published: 1 June 2011
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KEYWORDS
animal damage management
carnivore conservation
human—wildlife conflict
probability surface
spatial model
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