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

人类与食肉动物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和对人和家畜的袭击引起的冲突会降低人类对食肉动物的容忍度。随着世界范围内城市化的发展，人类与食肉动物之间的互动变得越来越普遍，一些居民呼吁消灭食肉动物，而另一些人则要求采取促进共存的管理方法。人类与食肉动物之间的冲突以及不同人群之间的冲突创造了一种研究需求，即预测城市中人类与食肉动物之间的负面互动，并了解如何改善管理以促进共存。本项目研究1)人类和食肉动物的哪些特征导致冲突或共存，2)如何制定管理决策，使用致命和非致命的方法来控制城市中的食肉动物，以及3)不同管理策略对食肉动物遗传学和公众对食肉动物的可接受性的异质影响。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），它们位于城市野生动物信息网络中，该网络由50多个城市的研究人员和管理人员合作，他们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：伊利诺伊州的芝加哥；华盛顿特区;凤凰城,阿兹;互补分析利用来自20个城市的相机陷阱数据来了解肉食动物和冲突的地理模式如何根据各自城市的特征而变化。防止人类与食肉动物之间负面互动的部分挑战在于，它通常被视为野生动物管理问题，而不是复杂的社会生态系统。人与食肉动物的互动受到食肉动物在人类附近存在的影响，但人类的反应最终会影响互动的可能性（例如，提供食物引诱剂）、结果（例如，是否致命地移除食肉动物）以及共存的多种形式（例如，城市自然区域是否容忍或欢迎食肉动物）。该项目通过结合从相机陷阱中获得的土狼和浣熊分布数据、通过调查方法得出的居民态度以及从访谈中推断的管理观点，帮助解决了这一挑战。这种方法有助于推断食肉动物分布在多大程度上解释冲突中的空间模式，以及是否存在冲突明显但未向管理人员报告的社区。同样，多方面的方法有助于确定使用致命管理的情况，以及这些措施是否导致当地食肉动物种群遗传多样性的变化。最后，跨学科方法阐明了野生动物疾病如何动态影响人类与野生动物相互作用的可能性，以及人类如何对这些相互作用作出反应。该项目通过标记野生动物图像，吸引了成千上万的城市居民参与科学研究。它还通过林肯公园动物园的野外工作合作伙伴计划为K-12学生提供教育培训，在该计划中，学生们使用摄像机监控野生动物，并通过城市野生动物信息网络分析来自城市的哺乳动物群落数据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.