Invasive Carnivore Ecology and Management

Invasive carnivores represent a growing threat to biodiversity, ecosystem function and human livelihoods across all continents. Often introduced intentionally or arriving through accidental release, species such as raccoons, foxes and mongooses exploit novel environments through high reproductive rates, broad dietary habits and remarkable behavioural flexibility. Their impacts range from direct predation on native fauna and competition with endemic predators to the transmission of zoonotic diseases and agricultural losses. Effective management combines robust ecological understanding with adaptive strategies: population monitoring, habitat modelling, targeted removal or eradication, community engagement and policy frameworks. Technological advances in telemetry, genetic analysis and remote sensing now enable finer‐scale insights into movement patterns, habitat preferences and trophic interactions, informing evidence‐based interventions that balance conservation goals with socio-economic considerations.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have quantified the consequences of human-mediated translocations and the predatory impacts of invaders on vulnerable species. One investigation of experimentally translocated raccoons revealed dramatic expansions in their utilisation distributions and barrier-crossing behaviour, elevating contact rates and potential disease transmission in recipient landscapes. Another analysis combining DNA metabarcoding and stable isotope techniques demonstrated that invasive raccoons in temperate forests consume substantial volumes of amphibians, including populations of endangered salamanders, underscoring the urgent need to mitigate predation during critical breeding seasons.

Invasive Carnivore Ecology and Management publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in invasive carnivore ecology and management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Mesocarnivore: A medium-sized carnivorous mammal that plays a key role in trophic networks and may exhibit opportunistic feeding behaviour.

Utilisation distribution: A probabilistic representation of an animal’s space use over a defined period, derived from telemetry data.

DNA metabarcoding: A genetic technique that identifies multiple prey species from environmental samples (e.g., faeces) using high-throughput sequencing of marker genes.

Ecological niche modelling: A statistical approach to predict species’ potential geographic distributions based on correlations between known occurrences and environmental variables.

References

1. Spatial ecology of translocated raccoons. Scientific Reports (2023).
2. Land cover and climatic conditions as potential drivers of the raccoon (Procyon lotor) distribution in North America and Europe. European Journal of Wildlife Research (2023).
3. Analysis of the Raccoon (Procyon lotor) and Common Raccoon Dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) Spatiotemporal Changes Based on Hunting Bag Data in Hungary. Diversity (2024).
4. Behavior‐specific habitat selection by raccoons in the Prairie Pothole Region of Manitoba. Journal of Wildlife Management (2023).