Wildlife as sentinels of compliance with law: An example with GPS-tagged scavengers and sanitary regulations
Entity
UAM. Departamento de EcologíaPublisher
John Wiley and Sons IncDate
2023-10-01Citation
10.1111/1365-2664.14487
Journal of Applied Ecology 60.10 (2023): 2188-2198
ISSN
0021-8901DOI
10.1111/1365-2664.14487Funded by
We thank Principado de Asturias, Junta de Castilla y León, Xunta de Galicia and the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas for permits for GPS tracking of scavengers and information on implementation of EU sanitary regulations. Animal captures complied with ethical guidelines under Directive 2010/63/UE. Jaime Fagúndez provided data on horses in Galicia. JVLB was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (RYC-2015-18932). The Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (CGL2017-87528-R AEI/FEDER EU), BBVA FOUNDATION GRANTS 2018, Regional Government of Asturias, Asturias GRUPIN grant IDI/2021/000075, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (TED2021-132519B-I00) and “Fundación Biodiversidad” of the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (WINDWILDNET project), both through PRTR and NextGenerationEU Funds, and FUNDO AMBIENTAL of the Portuguese Ministry of Environment and Climate Action (Sentinelas project) supported this work. JVLB was also supported by project 2020-04973 funded by the Swedish Research Council [Correction added on 12 September 2023, after first online publica tion: Funding details have been added.]Project
Gobierno de España. RYC-2015-18932; Gobierno de España. CGL2017-87528-R AEI/FEDER EU; Gobierno de España. TED2021-132519B-I00Editor's Version
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fqz612jz4Subjects
Biomonitoring; environmental rule of law; GPS-tracking; law enforcement; livestock carcasses; vulture; wolf; Biología y Biomedicina / BiologíaRights
© 2023 The AuthorsEsta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional.
Abstract
Monitoring compliance with environmental laws is essential to overcoming possible implementation shortfalls jeopardizing their effectiveness. Besides improving our ecological understanding of wildlife, remote tracking technologies also allow us to take advantage of such ecological knowledge to use wildlife as sentinels of compliance with law. We illustrate this sentinel potential of wildlife using GPS tracking of large scavengers with complementary functional traits (i.e. 21 griffon vultures and 13 wolves) to assess compliance with EU sanitary regulations allowing livestock carcass disposal in the field. Wildlife sentinels allowed the systematic evaluation of 489 livestock carcasses left in the field, which revealed an important mismatch between on-paper and in-reality implementation of these regulations. While <45% of the carcasses were placed in authorized areas, compliance with all the criteria required by the regulations on livestock carcass disposal (e.g. from carcass characteristics such as species, age or production system to its location far away from water, buildings or roads) ranged from 0% to 4.2%, with no major differences between regions with uneven implementation. Major gaps in compliance pointed towards insufficient and over-bureaucratized designation of scavenger feeding zones, where livestock carcass disposal is authorized. The indiscriminate nature of distance criteria from carcasses to watercourses, buildings and infrastructure further affected compliance. Synthesis and applications. GPS-tagged scavengers allow the on-ground monitoring of carcasses, the addressing of potential risks for wildlife, livestock and human health, the quantitative assessment of compliance with the law and would improve estimates of carcass availability, substantially contributing to more effective legislation enforcement. Our results show the huge potential of GPS-tagged wildlife as sentinels for monitoring compliance to enhance the environmental rule of law.
Files in this item
Google Scholar:Mateo-Tomás, Patricia
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Rodríguez-Pérez, Jorge
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Fernández-García, María
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García, Emilio J.
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Valente e Santos, João Pedro
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Gutiérrez, Iván
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Pérez Olea, Ángel Pedro
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Rodríguez-Moreno, Beatriz
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López-Bao, José Vicente
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