LAND: At the interface between science and policy for large carnivores: science for policy, science of policy, and science in policy

The silence of the lambs. Since the 1980's the issue of sheep disappearing during the summer grazing period has been a constant subject of discussion. A major candidate has been the large carnivores, which began their recoveries in the 1980's and 1990's. Studies based on radio-collared sheep, as well as the autopsy of carcasses of sheep found by their owners has confirmed that wolves, bears, wolverines, and lynx can kill large numbers of sheep. The same studies have also shown that sheep die from many other causes while free grazing, including accidents, diseases and parasite infestation. The state pays compensation for livestock losses caused by large carnivores. There has always been a need to estimate the portion of losses due to carnivores. However, despite intensive investment in improved surveillance of flocks, less than 10% of the lost sheep are ever found in a condition that permits a cause of death to be determined. It has therefore been left to administration staff to set a reasonable guess. In practice they have assumed that everything above a so-called "normal loss" (the levels of losses from the 1970's before large carnivore recovery) is due to carnivore depredation. This practice has resulted in huge sums of public money being spent on compensation payments that are based on a very uncertain documentation, a situation that the Office of the Auditor General has commented on frequently. Since the 1990's, there has been a huge investment in research to study the underlying ecology of large carnivore depredation on sheep with a special focus on lynx. Since 1995, the Scandlynx project has tried to quantify the numbers of sheep killed by lynx and estimate the size of the lynx population. This work has been conducted in study sites all across Norway. It has shown that most lynx will kill sheep at some time or the other. But, when we multiple these kill rates with the estimated number of lynx we rarely come close to number of sheep for which compensation is being paid. Occasionally we estimate that payments have been from 4 to 5 times higher than what the lynx population is likely to have killed. The question concerns what the sheep are actually dying from? From the earlier telemetry studies there is a long list of potential other causes. At the same time as studying sheep losses from the carnivores' perspective we have also been analyzing the records on sheep losses to explore patterns in the data and identify factors that are associated with losses. We see that areas where large carnivores are present are associated with higher losses than other areas. However, we also see strong effects of sheep density (too many sheep leads to greater losses), lamb slaughter weights (indicating losses are higher in areas and years where lambs experience poorer conditions), and winter / spring weather (timing of snow melt and spring conditions can influence vegetation quality). This indicates that factors other than predation are also important in driving losses. Clearly there is a need to focus in greater detail on sheep losses to reveal the relative importance of other factors than predators. But, even if we gain a full understanding of the cause of loss there will be a need to adopt measures to reduce them. There is a widespread perception that free grazing in summer is associated with good animal welfare. However, at present, around 130.000 sheep are lost each summer. It is an open question if this level of loss is acceptable for a modern farming practice. Even if all those claimed as being carnivore kills are actually that, it still does not account for more than around 40% of the annual losses. What is certain is that any efforts to reduce any of the main causes of mortality will require dramatic changes in husbandry. Despite this having been recognized for more than twenty years, relatively little progress has been made. Our social science research has revealed that the issue of sheep farming is highly devise among stakeholders. For those associated with traditional production activities, sheep are symbolic of the need to use all natural resources that was a key issue in Norway during historic times. Sheep are associated with tradition, the cultural landscape and local values. For many environmentalists, sheep have become another symbol, as a barrier to large carnivore conservation, and associated with an animal welfare problem. For the twenty years that NFR have been financing applied large carnivore research in Norway there has been an incredible leap in our understanding of the underlying ecological, behavioural and societal processes. However, this leap in knowledge has not lead to significant movement in agricultural policy. Understanding this gap is clearly the major need for the next phase of research.

Despite the massive amount of research effort involving natural and social sciences that has been conducted on large carnivores and rural communities in Norway during the last 15 years the conflicts associated with the presence of these species persist, a nd in many cases have intensified. This project will avail of the data collected by the ongoing field based projects and will explicitly explore what the existing science says about the wisdom of present policies and examine how it has been used in policy development and implementation. We shall focus on a number of areas that have received particular attention in political debates - which have placed a massive emphasis on regulating carnivore numbers in relation to agricultural conflicts. Firstly, we sha ll explore the existing monitoring methods, to evaluate them against independent methods, and explore ways to improve them. Secondly, we shall investigate the relationship between large carnivore densities and losses of domestic sheep and reindeer, and ex plore how this is modulated by climate and livestock density. Thirdly, we shall model the manner in which management within a given jurisdiction is influenced by that in an adjacent jurisdiction at multiple scales from sub-national to international while considering the spatial scales at which large carnivores live. Fourthly, we shall explore the structure, function and legitimacy of large carnivore management institutions, focusing on the Norwegian situation, but against a backdrop of the diversity of Eu ropean institutional arrangements. A final step will summarise the state of the science - policy interface and identify priorities for future research. The project will be achieved by integrating established scientists that head up the empirical / field / species based projects and international partners with a team of postdocs and masters students that will conduct these cross-cutting thematic studies.