PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Although many studies highlighted the potential of COVID-19 to reshape existing models of wildlife management, empirical research on this topic has been scarce, particularly in Europe. We investigated the potential of COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate the ongoing decline in an aging population of recreational hunters in Italy. Namely, we modelled spatiotemporal trends between 2011 and 2021 in the number of recreational hunters in 50 Italian provinces with a varying incidence of COVID-19, and temporally delayed waves of infection. Compared to projections from 2011-2019 data, we detected a lower number of hunters who enrolled for the hunting season, both in 2020 (14 provinces) and in 2021 (15 provinces). The provinces with the highest incidence of COVID-19 in the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions were also those experiencing the most marked decrease in hunting participation. Our findings revealed that a wildlife management system based on recreational hunting can be rapidly destabilized by epidemics and their associated public health measures, particularly when the average age of hunters is high, like in Italy. Considered the high incidence attained by COVID-19 in many European countries, where hunters are pivotal for the management of large ungulates and where they were already declining before the pandemic, our findings call for further large-scale research about the impact of COVID-19 on hunting participation.
摘要：
尽管许多研究强调了COVID-19重塑现有野生动物管理模式的潜力，关于这一主题的实证研究一直很少，尤其是在欧洲。我们调查了COVID-19大流行加速意大利休闲猎人老龄化人口持续下降的潜力。即,我们模拟了2011年至2021年间意大利50个省份娱乐性猎人数量的时空趋势,这些省份的COVID-19发病率不同,感染波在时间上有延迟.与2011-2019年数据的预测相比，我们发现参加狩猎季节的猎人人数较少，2020年（14个省）和2021年（15个省）。伦巴第和艾米利亚-罗马涅地区新冠肺炎发病率最高的省份也是狩猎参与率下降最明显的省份。我们的发现表明，基于休闲狩猎的野生动植物管理系统可能会因流行病及其相关的公共卫生措施而迅速不稳定，特别是当猎人的平均年龄很高时，就像在意大利。考虑到COVID-19在许多欧洲国家的高发病率，猎人是管理大型有蹄类动物的关键，在大流行之前它们已经在下降，我们的发现需要进一步大规模研究COVID-19对狩猎参与的影响。
