TY - JOUR A1 - Sunde, Peter A1 - Collet, Sebastian A1 - Nowak, Carsten A1 - Thomsen, Philip Francis A1 - Møller Hansen, Michael A1 - Schulz, Björn A1 - Matzen, Jens A1 - Michler, Frank-Uwe A1 - Vedel-Smith, Christina A1 - Olsen, Kent T1 - Where have all the young wolves gone? Traffic and cryptic mortality create a wolf population sink in Denmark and northernmost Germany JF - Conservation Letters N2 - Large carnivores are currently recolonizing Europe following legal protection, but increased mortality in landscapes highly impacted by humans may limit further population expansion. We analyzed mortality and disappearance rates of 35 wolves (of which three emigrated, nine died and 14 disappeared by 1 January 2020) by genetic monitoring in the heavily cultivated and densely populated Jutland peninsula (Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, Germany). Annual traffic kill rate estimates ranged from 0.37 (95% CI: 0.11–0.85) to 0.78 (0.51–0.96) in the German part, equivalent to 0.08 (0.02–0.29)–0.25 (0.13–0.46) for the entire region, in the absence of any registered Danish roadkills. In Denmark, annual mortality rate estimates ranged from 0.46 (0.29–0.67) to 0.52 (0.35–0.71), predominantly from cryptic mortality. Despite successful reproductions, we conclude the region is a wolf population sink, primarily driven by cryptic mortality, most likely illegal killing. We hypothesize that frequent encounters between wolves and wolf-averse persecutors in cultivated landscapes may cause unsustainably high mortality rates despite the majority of hunters respecting protection laws. KW - Canis lupus KW - Denmark KW - Genetic wildlife monitoring KW - Germany KW - Human-wildlife conflict KW - Illegal killings KW - Large carnivores KW - Poaching KW - Recolonization KW - Roadkills KW - Source-sink Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-2565 SN - 1755-263X VL - 14 IS - 5 PB - Wiley ER -