DISES: Social-ecological drivers and consequences of human-carnivore interactions within and among American cities

人类与食肉动物的共存对全球保护工作至关重要，但共存是困难的，因为人畜共患疾病的传播以及对人和家畜的攻击所引发的冲突可能会降低人类对食肉动物的容忍度。随着全球城市化进程的加快，人类和食肉动物之间的互动正变得越来越普遍，这导致一些居民呼吁根除食肉动物，而另一些居民则要求采取促进共存的管理方法。人类与食肉动物之间以及不同人群之间的冲突产生了一种研究需要，即预测城市中人与食肉动物的负面相互作用，并了解如何改善管理以促进共存。该项目研究1)人类和肉食动物的哪些特征导致冲突或共存，2)如何做出关于使用致命和非致命方法控制城市肉食动物的管理决策，以及3)不同管理策略对肉食动物遗传学和公众可接受性的不同影响。这项研究的重点是两种具有广泛区域分布的城市食肉动物，郊狼(Canis Latrans)和浣熊(Procyon Lotor)，参与城市野生动物信息网络的城市，该网络由50多个城市的研究人员和管理人员合作，使用类似的方法研究城市野生动物。该项目特别关注四个城市：伊利诺伊州芝加哥、华盛顿特区、亚利桑那州凤凰城和加利福尼亚州旧金山。补充分析利用了来自20个城市的相机陷阱数据，以了解食肉动物的地理模式和冲突是如何根据各自城市的特征而变化的。防止人类和食肉动物之间的负面互动的部分挑战是，它通常被视为一个野生动物管理问题，而不是一个复杂的社会生态系统。人与食肉动物的相互作用受到人附近肉食动物存在的影响，但人类的反应最终影响相互作用的可能性(例如，提供食物引诱剂)、结果(例如，肉食动物是否被致命地移除)和多种形式的共存(例如，在城市自然区域是否容忍或庆祝肉食动物)。该项目通过将摄像头捕捉到的郊狼和浣熊分布的数据与通过调查方法得出的居民态度和从访谈中推断的管理观点结合起来，帮助解决这一挑战。这种方法有助于推断食肉动物的分布在多大程度上解释了冲突中的空间格局，以及是否存在明显冲突但没有向管理者报告的社区。同样，多方面的方法有助于确定使用致命管理的环境，以及这些措施是否导致当地食肉动物种群的遗传多样性发生变化。最后，这种跨学科的方法阐明了野生动物疾病如何动态地影响人与野生动物相互作用的可能性，以及人类如何应对这些相互作用。这个项目通过标记野生动物图像，让成千上万的城市居民参与到科学中来。它还通过林肯公园动物园的野外工作伙伴计划为K-12年级的学生提供教育培训，在该计划中，学生使用摄像机监控野生动物，并分析城市野生动物信息网中城市的哺乳动物群落数据。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Human coexistence with carnivores is vital to global conservation efforts, but coexistence is difficult because conflicts arising from the transmission of zoonotic diseases and attacks on people and domestic animals can reduce human tolerance for carnivores. Interactions between humans and carnivores are becoming more common with growing urbanization worldwide, leading to calls for carnivore eradication from some residents while others demand management approaches that promote coexistence. Conflicts between humans and carnivores and between different groups of people create a research need to predict negative human-carnivore interactions in cities and understand how to improve management to foster coexistence. This project examines 1) which characteristics of humans and carnivores either lead to conflict or to coexistence, 2) how management decisions are made about the use of lethal and non-lethal methods for controlling carnivores in cities, and 3) the heterogeneous impacts of different management strategies on carnivore genetics and public acceptability of carnivores. This research focuses on two urban carnivores with broad regional distributions, coyotes (Canis latrans) and raccoons (Procyon lotor), within cities involved in the Urban Wildlife Information Network, a collaborative of researchers and managers in over 50 cities who study urban wildlife using similar methods. This project particularly focuses on four cities: Chicago, IL; Washington D.C.; Phoenix, AZ; and San Francisco, CA. Complementary analysis draws on camera trap data from 20 cities to understand how the geographical patterns of carnivores and conflicts vary based on characteristics of the respective cities.Part of the challenge in preventing negative interactions between humans and carnivores is that it is typically approached as a wildlife management issue rather than a complex social-ecological system. Human-carnivore interactions are influenced by the presence of carnivores near people, but human responses ultimately affect the likelihood of interactions (e.g., providing food attractants), outcomes (e.g., whether carnivores are lethally removed), and diverse forms of coexistence (e.g., whether carnivores are tolerated or celebrated in urban natural areas). This project helps to address this challenge by combining data on coyote and raccoon distributions from camera traps with resident attitudes, as elicited via survey methods, and management perspectives, as inferred from interviews. This approach facilitates inferences about the extent to which carnivore distributions explain spatial patterns in conflicts and if there are communities where conflict is evident but not reported to managers. Similarly, the multifaceted approach helps to identify contexts where lethal management is used and if these measures result in changes to the genetic diversity of local carnivore populations. Lastly, the transdisciplinary approach elucidates how wildlife disease can dynamically influence the likelihood of human-wildlife interactions and how humans respond to those interactions. This project engages thousands of urban residents in participatory science via the tagging of wildlife images. It also provides educational training for K-12 students through the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Partners in Fieldwork program, in which students monitor wildlife using cameras and analyze mammal community data from cities across the Urban Wildlife Information Network.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.