Biases in the Detection of Intentionally Poisoned Animals: Public Health and Conservation Implications from a Field Experiment

José M. Gil-Sánchez, Natividad Aguilera-Alcalá, Marcos Moleón, Esther Sebastián-González, Antoni Margalida, Zebensui Morales-Reyes, Carlos J. Durá-Alemañ, Pilar Oliva-Vidal, Juan M. Pérez-García and José A. Sánchez-Zapata
Additional contact information
José M. Gil-Sánchez: Department of Applied Biology, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. de la Universidad, s/n, E-03202 Elche, Spain
Natividad Aguilera-Alcalá: Department of Applied Biology, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. de la Universidad, s/n, E-03202 Elche, Spain
Marcos Moleón: Department of Zoology, University of Granada, Avda. de Fuente Nueva, s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain
Esther Sebastián-González: Department of Applied Biology, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. de la Universidad, s/n, E-03202 Elche, Spain
Antoni Margalida: Institute for Game and Wildlife Research, IREC (CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), E-13005 Ciudad Real, Spain
Zebensui Morales-Reyes: Department of Applied Biology, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. de la Universidad, s/n, E-03202 Elche, Spain
Carlos J. Durá-Alemañ: International Center for Environmental Law Studies, CIEDA-CIEMAT, Bernardo Robles Square 9, 42002 Soria, Spain
Pilar Oliva-Vidal: Institute for Game and Wildlife Research, IREC (CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), E-13005 Ciudad Real, Spain
Juan M. Pérez-García: Department of Applied Biology, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. de la Universidad, s/n, E-03202 Elche, Spain
José A. Sánchez-Zapata: Department of Applied Biology, Miguel Hernández University, Avda. de la Universidad, s/n, E-03202 Elche, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: Intentional poisoning is a global wildlife problem and an overlooked risk factor for public health. Managing poisoning requires unbiased and high-quality data through wildlife monitoring protocols, which are largely lacking. We herein evaluated the biases associated with current monitoring programmes of wildlife poisoning in Spain. We compared the national poisoning database for the 1990–2015 period with information obtained from a field experiment during which we used camera-traps to detect the species that consumed non-poisoned baits. Our findings suggest that the detection rate of poisoned animals is species-dependent: Several animal groups (e.g., domestic mammalian carnivores and vultures) tended to be over-represented in the poisoning national database, while others (e.g., corvids and small mammals) were underrepresented. As revealed by the GLMM analyses, the probability of a given species being overrepresented was higher for heaviest, aerial, and cryptic species. In conclusion, we found that monitoring poisoned fauna based on heterogeneous sources may produce important biases in detection rates; thus, such information should be used with caution by managers and policy-makers. Our findings may guide to future search efforts aimed to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the intentional wildlife poisoning problem.

Keywords: human-wildlife conflict; predator control; public health; vultures; wildlife conservation; wildlife poisoning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/3/1201/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/3/1201/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:3:p:1201-:d:489328

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().