Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-29-2025
Department
College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science
Abstract
Research indicates that human-caused mortality (HCM) is a key factor limiting numerous large carnivore populations. However, efforts to represent HCM in spatially explicit models have generally been limited in scope-often relying on proxies, such as road or human density. Yet such efforts fail to distinguish different sources of HCM, which can arise from different antecedent processes. We offer a systems-based conceptual framework for understanding the antecedents of HCMs that is grounded in theory from the social and behavioral sciences. Specifically, we first explain how HCMs are usefully distinguished into four types (e.g., accidental, harvest, illicit, control actions), then discuss how these different types tend to be driven by different sets of psychological and sociopolitical processes. We contend that improvements in understanding the spatial variation in HCMs would rise from more explicit attention to the various antecedent processes that precede each mortality type.
Publication Title
Ambio
Recommended Citation
Bruskotter, J. T.,
Carter, N. H.,
Berl, R.,
Hinton, J.,
Murphy, J.,
Mark Elbroch, L.,
&
Vucetich, J. A.
(2025).
Bridging social and ecological science to create spatially explicit models of human-caused mortality of carnivores.
Ambio.
http://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-025-02165-1
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p2/1651
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Version
Publisher's PDF
Publisher's Statement
© Jeremy T. Bruskotter, Neil H. Carter, Joseph Hinton, Jazmin Murphy, L. Mark Elbroch, John A. Vucetich. Parts of this work were authored by US Federal Government authors and are not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2025. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-025-02165-1