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Ten state wildlife management agencies in the United States, including six within the Southeast, have delayed their spring wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) hunting seasons since 2017 by five or more days to address concerns related to the potential effects of hunting on wild turkey seasonal productivity. One hypothesis posits that if the spring hunting season is too early, there may be insufficient time for males to breed hens before being harvested, thus leading to reduced seasonal productivity. We conducted an experiment to determine whether delaying the wild turkey hunting season by 2 weeks in south‐middle Tennessee would affect various reproductive rates. In 2021 and 2022, the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission experimentally delayed the spring hunting season to open 14 days later than the traditional date (the Saturday closest to 1 April) in Giles, Lawrence, and Wayne counties. We monitored reproductive rates from 2017 to 2022 in these three counties as well as two adjacent counties, Bedford and Maury, that were not delayed. We used a Before‐After‐Control‐Impact design to analyze the proportion of hens nesting, clutch size, hatchability, nest success, poult survival and hen survival with linear mixed‐effect models and AIC model selection to detect relationships between the 14‐day delay and reproductive parameters. We detected no relationship (p > .05) between the 14‐day delay and any individual reproductive parameter. In addition, recruitment (hen poults per hen that survived until the next breeding season) was very low (<0.5) and did not increase because of the 14‐day delay. The traditional Tennessee start date had been in place since 1986 while the turkey harvest increased markedly until about 2006 and more recently stabilized. Our data indicate that moving the start of the hunting season from a period just prior to peak nest initiation to 2 weeks later, to coincide with a period just prior to peak nest incubation initiation, resulted in no change to productivity or populations in wild turkey flocks in south‐middle Tennessee. We assessed how a later spring wild turkey hunting season impacts wild turkey productivity to inform management agency regulation changes. To summarize, wild turkey productivity did not change if you allow the hunting season to open just prior to nest initiation (earlier in the year) or during the onset of nest incubation initiation (later in the year) in Tennessee.

1. Wildlife managers often rely on resource users, such as recreational or commercial hunters, to achieve management goals. The use of hunters to control wildlife populations is especially common for predators and ungulates, but managers cannot assume that hunters will always fill annual quotas set by the authorities. It has been advocated that resource management models should account for uncertainty in how harvest rules are realized, requiring that this implementation uncertainty be estimated. 2. We used a survival analysis framework and long-term harvest data from large carnivore management systems in three countries (Estonia, Latvia and Norway) involving four species (brown bear, grey wolf, Eurasian lynx and wolverine) to estimate the performance of hunters with respect to harvest goals set by managers. 3. Variation in hunter quota-filling performance was substantial, ranging from 40% for wolverine in Norway to nearly 100% for lynx in Latvia. Seasonal and regional variation was also high within country—species pairs. We detected a positive relationship between the instantaneous potential to fill a quota slot and the relative availability of the target species for both wolverine and lynx in Norway. 4. Survivor curves and hazards — with survival time measured as the time from the start of a season until a quota slot is filled — can indicate the extent to which managers can influence harvest through adjustments of season duration and quota limits. 5. Synthesis and applications. We investigated seven systems where authorities use recreational hunting to manage large carnivore populations. The variation and magnitude of deviation from harvest goals was substantial, underlining the need to incorporate implementation uncertainty into resource management models and decisions-making. We illustrate how survival analysis can be used by managers to estimate the performance of resource users with respect to achieving harvest goals set by managers. The findings in this study come at an opportune time given the growing popularity of management strategy evaluation (MSE) models in fisheries and a push towards incorporating MSE into terrestrial harvest management.

Populations of temperate-nesting Canada geese (Branta canadensis) have increased in Nebraska, USA, resulting in an increased number of nuisance and damage complaints. September hunting seasons were initiated in southeastern Nebraska in 2004 to reduce populations of Canada geese. We analyzed band recoveries from Canada geese banded in southeastern Nebraska during their hatch-year (HY) or afterhatch-year (AHY) to determine whether September hunting seasons affected survival, harvest, and recovery rates. Survival analyses revealed that HY geese had higher survival than AHY geese (SAHY = 0.696, 95% CI = 0.679–0.713;S HY= 0.896, 95% CI = 0.786–0.953) and September seasons did not affect survival of geese in southeastern Nebraska. Geese banded in the geographic zone with the September seasons (southeastern Nebraska) had the same survival as did geese outside the hunt zone (northeastern Nebraska;S= 0.711, 95% CI = 0.666–0.752). September hunting seasons affected timing of band recovery; 23–49% of annual band recoveries occurred during the month of September. Prior to the initiation of the September seasons, the highest percent of recoveries occurred during November. The September seasons appeared to temporally redistribute harvest but did not reduce survival for populations of Canada geese in southeastern Nebraska. Continuation of the season may not be warranted, because management does not appear to be affecting AHY survival, which is needed to reduce the population. Additional or new methods are likely needed to control populations of temperate-nesting Canada geese in Nebraska and managers should evaluate the effectiveness of these methods as they are implemented.

Among agents of selection that shape phenotypic traits in animals, humans can cause more rapid changes than many natural factors. Studies have focused on human selection of morphological traits, but little is known about human selection of behavioural traits. By monitoring elk (Cervus elaphus) with satellite telemetry, we tested whether individuals harvested by hunters adopted less favourable behaviours than elk that survived the hunting season. Among 45 2-year-old males, harvested elk showed bolder behaviour, including higher movement rate and increased use of open areas, compared with surviving elk that showed less conspicuous behaviour. Personality clearly drove this pattern, given that inter-individual differences in movement rate were present before the onset of the hunting season. Elk that were harvested further increased their movement rate when the probability of encountering hunters was high (close to roads, flatter terrain, during the weekend), while elk that survived decreased movements and showed avoidance of open areas. Among 77 females (2–19 y.o.), personality traits were less evident and likely confounded by learning because females decreased their movement rate with increasing age. As with males, hunters typically harvested females with bold behavioural traits. Among less-experienced elk (2–9 y.o.), females that moved faster were harvested, while elk that moved slower and avoided open areas survived. Interestingly, movement rate decreased as age increased in those females that survived, but not in those that were eventually harvested. The latter clearly showed lower plasticity and adaptability to the local environment. All females older than 9 y.o. moved more slowly, avoided open areas and survived. Selection on behavioural traits is an important but often-ignored consequence of human exploitation of wild animals. Human hunting could evoke exploitation-induced evolutionary change, which, in turn, might oppose adaptive responses to natural and sexual selection.

1. Large-scale conservation measures aimed at reducing the abundance of a wild population offer a unique opportunity to study the impacts of human exploitation on demographic parameters. We examined the effects of a spring conservation harvest and liberalized autumn/winter regulations introduced recently to control the rapid population growth of greater snow geese Anser caerulescens atlantica. 2. We predicted that these changes in regulations affected survival and recovery probabilities, as well as kill rates. This was evaluated by analysing data on geese shot by hunters before and after implementation of these measures. 3. Annual survival and recovery probabilities were estimated using likelihood-based ring recovery models, and we developed a new, flexible seasonal model to determine the specific effects of regulation changes made during different hunting seasons. We used harvest survey data to estimate ring-reporting rate, and thus to convert recovery rates into kill rates. 4. Adult recovery and kill rates increased considerably with the implementation of the new measures in 1998-99. The addition of the spring harvest in Québec and the liberalized winter regulations in the USA had the largest impacts, whereas autumn regulation changes in Québec apparently had little effect. Juvenile recovery and kill rates also showed a moderate increase, but were highly variable. 5. We observed a decline in mean annual adult survival rate, from 83·0% to 72·5%, although the implementation of conservation measures did not fully explain temporal variation in adult survival; juvenile survival showed no change. Adult survival was negatively related to harvest rate in adults but not in juveniles. 6. Synthesis and applications. We demonstrate that the spring conservation harvest led to a decrease in adult survival and an increase in hunting mortality, and probably contributed to the decline in abundance observed since its implementation. However, regulations during the traditional autumn and winter hunting seasons could also be manipulated for future population control once the spring conservation harvest is discontinued. Our approach for evaluating hunting mortality on a seasonal basis should be useful in the management of other migratory populations that move through several jurisdictions.

Spring wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) hunting is a foundational activity for many hunters across North America. Managing turkey hunters and turkey hunting is, therefore, a priority for state and provincial fish and wildlife management agencies. Early stages of the current SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States coincided with 2020 spring turkey hunting seasons across the U.S. Potential effects of increases in peoples' time available for hunting on effort and turkey populations could have been substantial. We surveyed the primary wildlife biologist tasked with wild turkey management for each state and provincial jurisdiction with a huntable wild turkey population to determine turkey hunter and hunting dynamics before and during the spring 2020 turkey season. Biologists in 47 states responded to the survey. Results varied among states but hunting license sales, the number of hunters afield, harvest, total hunter-days afield, and the number of days individual hunters were afield were greater in 2020 than the mean from the previous 3 years (2017–2019) in many states. Although hunting effort and total reported harvest increased in most states in 2020 from the previous 3-year average, take-per-unit-effort (i.e., harvest per hunter day) decreased in 93% of jurisdictions from which data were available, supporting the finding that increases in turkey harvest in spring 2020 were a result of a COVID-related increase in participation and effort and not increases in turkey abundance. We recommend using these reference data for turkey population and turkey hunter monitoring pre- and post-pandemic. Monitoring efforts should include wildlife population and habitat evaluations and study of hunter dynamics in a social science framework.

In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implemented an adaptive harvest management program (AHM) for the sport harvest of midcontinent mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). The program has been successful in reducing long-standing contentiousness in the regulatory process, while integrating science and policy in a coherent, rigorous, and transparent fashion. After 20 years, much has been learned about the relationship among waterfowl populations, their environment, and hunting regulations, with each increment of learning contributing to better management decisions. At the same time, however, much has been changing in the social, institutional, and environmental arenas that provide context for the AHM process. Declines in hunter numbers, competition from more pressing conservation issues, and global-change processes are increasingly challenging waterfowl managers to faithfully reflect the needs and desires of stakeholders, to account for an increasing number of institutional constraints, and to (probabilistically) predict the consequences of regulatory policy in a changing environment. We review the lessons learned from the AHM process so far, and describe emerging challenges and ways in which they may be addressed. We conclude that the practice of AHM has greatly increased an awareness of the roles of social values, trade-offs, and attitudes toward risk in regulatory decision-making. Nevertheless, going forward the waterfowl management community will need to focus not only on the relationships among habitat, harvest, and waterfowl populations, but on the ways in which society values waterfowl and how those values can change over time.

Prey usually adjust anti-predator behavior to subtle variations in perceived risk. However, it is not clear whether adult large carnivores that are virtually free of natural predation adjust their behavior to subtle variations in human-derived risk, even when living in human-dominated landscapes. As a model, we studied resting-site selection by a large carnivore, the brown bear (Ursus arctos), under different spatial and temporal levels of human activity. We quantified horizontal and canopy cover at 440 bear beds and 439 random sites at different distances from human settlements, seasons, and times of the day. We hypothesized that beds would be more concealed than random sites and that beds would be more concealed in relation to human-derived risk. Although human densities in Scandinavia are the lowest within bear ranges in Western Europe, we found an effect of human activity; bears chose beds with higher horizontal and canopy cover during the day (0700–1900 hours), especially when resting closer to human settlements, than at night (2200–0600 hours). In summer/fall (the berry season), with more intensive and dispersed human activity, including hunting, bears rested further from human settlements during the day than in spring (pre-berry season). Additionally, day beds in the summer/fall were the most concealed. Large carnivores often avoid humans at a landscape scale, but total avoidance in human-dominated areas is not possible. Apparently, bears adjust their behavior to avoid human encounters, which resembles the way prey avoid their predators. Bears responded to fine-scale variations in human-derived risk, both on a seasonal and a daily basis.

1. The effects of harvest on the annual and seasonal survival of willow ptarmigan Lagopus lagopus L. were tested in a large-scale harvest experiment. Management units were randomly assigned to one of three experimental treatments: 0%, 15% or 30% harvest. Seasonal quotas were based on the experimental treatment and estimates of bird density before the hunting season. Survival rates and hazard functions for radio-marked ptarmigan were then estimated under the competing risks of harvest and natural mortality. 2. The partially compensatory mortality hypothesis was supported: annual survival of ptarmigan was 0·54 ± 0·08 SE under 0% harvest, 0·47 ± 0·06 under 15% harvest, and was reduced to 0·30 ± 0·05 under 30% harvest. Harvest mortality increased linearly from 0·08 ± 0·05, 0·27 ± 0·05 and 0·42 ± 0·06 from 0% to 30% harvest, whereas natural mortality was 0·38 ± 0·08, 0·25 ± 0·05 and 0·28 ± 0·06 under the same treatments. 3. Realized risk of harvest mortality was 0·08-0·12 points higher than our set harvest treatments of 0-30% because birds were exposed to risk if they moved out of protected areas. The superadditive hypothesis was supported because birds in the 30% harvest treatment had higher natural mortality during winter after the hunting season. 4. Natural mortality was mainly because of raptor predation, with two seasonal peaks in fall and spring. Natural and harvest mortality coincided during early autumn with little potential for compensation during winter months. Peak risk of harvest mortality was 5× higher than natural mortality. Low natural mortality during winter suggests that most late season harvest would be additive mortality. 5. Environmental correlates of natural mortality of ptarmigan included seasonal changes in snow cover, onset of juvenile dispersal, and periods of territorial activity. Natural mortality of ptarmigan was highest during autumn movements and nesting by gyrfalcons Falco rusticolus L. Mortality was low when gyrfalcons had departed for coastal wintering sites, and during summer when ptarmigan were attending nests and broods. 6. Our experimental results have important implications for harvest management of upland gamebirds. Seasonal quotas based on proportional harvest were effective and should be set at ≤15% of August populations for regional management plans. Under threshold harvest of a reproductive surplus, 15% harvest would be sustainable at productivity rates ≥2·5 young per pair. Impacts of winter harvest could be minimized by closing the hunting season in early November or by reducing late season quotas.

Most ungulate populations are regulated by hunting, and harvest rate is regulated through quotas and hunting season duration. Hunting is well known to affect behaviour of ungulates, but how annual variation in quotas and hunting season duration affects individual behaviour remains uncertain. Harvest rates reach their highest level when aiming to limit outbreaks of infectious diseases. In Norway, marked changes to hunting regulations of wild reindeer Rangifer tarandus were implemented as part of chronic wasting disease (CWD) management (2019‒2022) in the Hardangervidda population, Norway. Here, we quantify the movements (step length) of 135 female GPS-marked alpine reindeer during years (2001‒2022) with largely variable levels of quotas, harvest rates (0‒33%) and hunting season duration (31‒58 days). A strong predictor of movement was season with a decline from mid- August to early October, and longer and more variable movement distances during daytime compared to the night. Reindeer moved more in years with higher harvest rates, but mainly in late September and not in the beginning of the hunting season. Movements were higher during weekends, only in early September. Our study shows that responses to hunting of an alpine ungulate living in open habitat appear to differ from those of forest living ungulates. The high level of sociality of reindeer may further increase disturbance effects relative to less social and forest-dwelling species. Hunting season occurs at a critical time before the winter season in northern Europe, and further studies are needed to investigate whether increased movements during hunting affect body condition