Eurasian beavers in Central Italy: perceptions in the local community

According to the IUCN guidelines, wildlife reintroduction should consider any impacts on humans within feasibility assessments. Eurasian beavers Castor fiber are recovering across their native range, due to protection laws and reintroductions. In Central Italy, a self-sustaining, naturalised populat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Die Naturwissenschaften 2023-08, Vol.110 (4), p.30-30, Article 30
Main Authors: Viviano, Andrea, Auster, Roger E., Mazza, Giuseppe, Lagrotteria, Alessandro, Pucci, Chiara, Senserini, Davide, Campbell-Palmer, Roisin, Needham, Robert, Curci, Davide, Mori, Emiliano
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Animals, Wild
Aquatic mammals
Beavers
Biodiversity
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Castor fiber
Ecology
Environment
Fish populations
Humans
Italy
Life Sciences
Medieval period
Mitochondrial DNA
Original
Original Article
Perceptions
Questionnaires
Reintroduction
Rodentia
Wildlife
Wildlife conservation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:According to the IUCN guidelines, wildlife reintroduction should consider any impacts on humans within feasibility assessments. Eurasian beavers Castor fiber are recovering across their native range, due to protection laws and reintroductions. In Central Italy, a self-sustaining, naturalised population of Eurasian beavers has been identified in the last five years. A questionnaire to measure whether and how citizens in the local area perceive the presence of the beaver was administered to 1114 respondents. We observed a comprehensive awareness of the presence of the beaver in Italy and a high ability to distinguish it from non-native coypus Myocastor coypus (92.3%). We also recorded a general high knowledge of issues related to the presence of the beaver (i.e., potential effects on indigenous biodiversity). The majority (65.5%) of the surveyed population was in favour of reintroducing the beaver in Central Italy, and only 1.2% was firmly against it. The majority of interviewed people was against the removal of beavers from Central Italy (65.8%), whereas only 3.7% was in favor, citing fears of perceived impacts on the river, crops, and fish populations.
ISSN:0028-1042
1432-1904
DOI:10.1007/s00114-023-01860-x