Drivers of human-wildlife impact events involving mammals in Southeastern Brazil
Date
10/11/2021Author
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Abstract
Annually millions of animals are killed as a result of human-wildlife impacts. Each year the NGO Associação Mata Ciliar (NGOMC), in Southeastern Brazil, receives and rehabilitates thousands of animals. We evaluated how natural and anthropogenic characteristics affect the risk of different types of human-wildlife impacts for mammals that arrive at the NGOMC; and explore the relationship between both the animal's size and the type of human-wildlife impact event, survival rates and the likelihood that these animals can be fully rehabilitated. To test our hypotheses regarding the drivers and consequences of the total number of human-wildlife impact events, traffic collisions, electrocutions, and requested removals, we used records of the mammals that arrived at the NGOMC between 2012 and 2018, and obtained data on environmental attributes and anthropogenic factors at the municipality level, as well as species weights. The total number of human-wildlife impact events and of requested removals were both positively correlated with deforestation rate and urban area. The number of traffic collisions was positively related to the number of fires. Municipalities with larger urban areas were more likely to have at least one electrocuted mammal. Temporally, the number of fires two months before was positively correlated with the number of human-wildlife impact events. Traffic collisions and electrocutions more frequently resulted in the death of the animal, than did other events. Animals that died were heavier on average than those that remained in captivity or were successfully released back into the wild. We conclude that human-wildlife impact event rates should decline with lower rates of deforestation, less anthropogenic fires and the adoption of other specific measures to avoid both traffic collisions with fauna and electrocutions.
Citation
Hilário , R R , Carvalho , W D , Gheler-Costa , C , Rosalino , L M C , Marques , T A , Adania , C H , Paulino , J S , Almeida , P M & Mustin , K 2021 , ' Drivers of human-wildlife impact events involving mammals in Southeastern Brazil ' , Science of the Total Environment , vol. 794 , 148600 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148600
Publication
Science of the Total Environment
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0048-9697Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148600.
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Funding Information: LMR thanks FCT / MCTES financial support to cE3c ( UIDB/00329/2020 ), through national funds, and the co-funding by the FEDER , within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020. RRH thanks the support of the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior —Brasil (CAPES - Process 88881.314420/2019-01 ). WDC thanks CAPES for post-doctoral (PNPD/CAPES) scholarships. TAM thanks partial support by CEAUL (funded by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia , Portugal, through the project UIDB/00006/2020 ).Collections
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