Survival and Recruitment of Gray Wolf Pups Before and after Harvest

摘要: Knowledge about recruitment in a population can be critical when making conservation decisions, particularly for harvested species. Harvest can affect population demography in complex ways and this may be particularly true for species whose successful reproduction is linked with complex social dynamics. We used noninvasive genetic sampling and a natural experiment to estimate recruitment in gray wolves (Canis lupus) before and after harvest in the northern Rocky Mountains, Idaho USA (2008-2013). We hypothesized that recruitment would decline after hunting and trapping began and that the decline in recruitment would