Estudio para la gestión del lobo en hábitats fragmentados por autovías.

Between 1997 and 1999 we studied the influence on wolves (Canis lupus) of a four-lane, fenced highway with no specific passes for wildlife in a flat agricultural environment with no tree cover. The study revealed that the four radiotagged wolves that for over a month lived less than 15 km from the highway did, in fact, cross it. Territorial wolves crossed the highway between 4.4 and 8.7 % of the days they were located. The two floaters did so on 22.2 and 23.6% of days. The crossing frequency of one young territorial female increased five-fold during the dispersal period. In the 8 known cases, the wolves crossed by means of 8-12-metre-wide and 40-60-metre-long asphalted bridges suitable for vehicles, which were the only structures available in the area. They crossed six times at night and twice by day. At night, 5 of the 6 wolves crossed over bridges with inhabited buildings less than 500 m away. During the day, there were no inhabited buildings less than one km from the passes, but the latter were located in areas with no tree cover whatsoever. One night, two tagged wolves that were ranging together separated in order to cross the highway, using two bridges with different degrees of humanisation, which suggests marked individual variation in tolerance to people. We radiotagged 8 wolves less than 5 km from the River Duero, which flows along a corridor with several minor infrastructures (roads, railway, canals, etc.). For over a year (184 monitoring days), we only detected one crossing, but in the four subsequent months, 3 wolves crossed 42.7% of the 75 monitoring days. These results indicate the important role learning plays and suggests that an accumulation of obstacles may exert a greater barrier effect than the sum of all of them. Our results suggest that simple highways cannot apparently fragment healthy wolf populations. However, bearing in mind the complexity of the factors bearing on fragmentation and the future increase in infrastructure construction in Spain, we believe it is prudent routinely to make all new highways which cross areas that are important for wild mammals permeable.

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Blanco J.C. y Cortés Y. Estudio para la gestión del lobo en hábitats fragmentados por autovías. 1999.

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Retrieved: 01 Feb 2025 17:45:19

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Date of creation 2024-12-02
Date of last revision 2025-02-01
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Metadata identifier 79751e03-5ef5-5584-9978-f07728010589
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Name of the dataset creator Blanco, J.C. y Cortés, Y.
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