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Volume 16, Issue 2 p. 77-81
Research Communication

Wildlife population changes across Eastern Europe after the collapse of socialism

Eugenia V Bragina

Corresponding Author

Eugenia V Bragina

SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI

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Anthony R Ives

Anthony R Ives

Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI

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Anna M Pidgeon

Anna M Pidgeon

SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI

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Linas Balčiauskas

Linas Balčiauskas

Laboratory of Mammalian Ecology, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania

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Sándor Csányi

Sándor Csányi

Szent István University, Institute for Wildlife Conservation, Gödöllő, Hungary

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Pavlo Khoyetskyy

Pavlo Khoyetskyy

National University of Forestry of Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine

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Katarina Kysucká

Katarina Kysucká

Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS, Nitra, Slovak Republic

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Juraj Lieskovsky

Juraj Lieskovsky

Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS, Nitra, Slovak Republic

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

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Janis Ozolins

Janis Ozolins

Latvian State Forest Research Institute SILAVA, Salaspils, Latvia

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Tiit Randveer

Tiit Randveer

Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia

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Přemysl Štych

Přemysl Štych

Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Cartography, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

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Anatoliy Volokh

Anatoliy Volokh

Tavria State Agrotechnological University, Melitopol, Ukraine

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Chavdar Zhelev

Chavdar Zhelev

National Station for Wildlife Management, Biology and Game Diseases, Executive Forest Agency, Ministry of Agriculture and Foods, Sofia, Bulgaria

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Elzbieta Ziółkowska

Elzbieta Ziółkowska

Department of GIS, Cartography and Remote Sensing, Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

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Volker C Radeloff

Volker C Radeloff

SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI

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First published: 06 February 2018
Citations: 20

Abstract

When political regimes fall, economic conditions change and wildlife protection can be undermined. Eastern European countries experienced turmoil following the collapse of socialism in the early 1990s, raising the question of how wildlife was affected. We show that the aftermath of the collapse changed the population growth rates of various wildlife taxa. We analyzed populations of moose (Alces alces), wild boar (Sus scrofa), red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), and gray wolf (Canis lupus) in nine countries. Population growth rates changed in 32 out of 49 time series. In the countries that reformed slowly, many species exhibited rapid population declines, and population growth rates changed in 83% of the time series. In contrast, in countries with fast post-socialism reforms, many populations increased rapidly, and growth rates changed in only 48% of time series. Our results suggest that the direction and frequency of the changes were associated with socioeconomic conditions, and that wildlife populations can be greatly affected by socioeconomic upheavals.