Large Carnivores

Introduction

Nature does not respect the borders that humans draw on maps. Effective conservation of nature requires that regions and nations cooperate. Motivating such cooperation lies at the heart of the Habitats Directive and Natura 2000.

The Commission has financed projects to develop guidelines for achieving transboundary cooperation that focuses conservation efforts on biologically defined populations, irrespective of how many borders these cross, for wolves, brown bears, wolverines and Eurasian lynx, and on the other hand to raise public awareness on large carnivores.

These large carnivores are the widest ranging mammalian species that we have in Europe, and their conservation presents many challenges. Only by working together can we hope to secure their future coexistence with human communities in Europe.

Guidelines for Population Level Management Plans for Large Carnivores

Download the note from the Commission to the Guidelines (pdf ~291Kb)and the final document Guidelines for Population Level Management Plans for Large Carnivores - FINAL (pdf ~1,4Mb).

This is the final version of the Guidelines and includes the comments of the Habitats Committee and its Scientific Working Group, national workshops organised in 13 Member States and 2 non-EU countries, various other comments and the final comments received during the pan-European Conference on Large Carnivores in Slovenia, 10-11 June 2008. See the website of the Slovenian presidency.

Species Online Information System

Species Online Information System
which contains:
ELOIS - Eurasian Lynx Online Information System for Europe (2004)
WISE - Wolverine Information System for Europe (2007, in work)
Bear Online Information System for Europe (2007, in work)
Wolf Online Information System for Europe (2007, in work)
Iberian Lynx Conservation Compendium (2005, IUCN/SSC Cat SG)

Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe
Information on the EU-financed project with LCIE.