130925-studie-wildlife-comeback-in-europe

Figure 1a.
Distribution of Red
deer in the 1800s [56] ,
1955 [57] and 2008 [26] .
Please note that the
range depicted for
1955 in Spain may be
larger than the actual
distribution of the
species [31] .
Figure 1b.
Map highlighting
areas of range
expansion,
persistence and
contraction for
Red deer in Europe
between 1955 and
2008. Please note
that some of the
change observed
from 1955 to 2008
is likely to be an
artefact of the
difference in map
resolution, for
example for the
United Kingdom and
Spain.
in abundance of just under 400% (Figure 2).
Recovery was greatest in the 1960s (120%), after
which the decadal growth dropped to around
30% for the following two decades, and around 5%
thereafter (Figure 2). This is in line with the largescale
increases described throughout most of the
deer’s European range in the 1950s to 1970s [9] , with
the notable exception of Greece [38] and Serbia [48] .
The abundance trend is based on 21 populations
from the species’ current range, representing a
minimum of 512,000 individuals or 21% of the
total estimated European population. Data were
available from around half of all countries of occurrence,
but lacking from those harbouring particularly
large populations such as Germany and
Austria (100,000+ individuals), as well as Denmark,
Sweden and Latvia (10,000+ individuals).
Drivers of recovery
In our data set, recovery in protected populations
correlated with the IUCN category of the
protected area, with only category V areas showing
77