Recovery of Large Carnivores in Europe's Human-Dominated Landscapes

This study documented that large carnivores, including the Eurasian lynx, have recovered and persist across much of Europe not in remote wilderness but in landscapes densely settled and used by people. The authors showed that, through legal protection, supportive policy, and a model of coexistence rather than separation, lynx, wolves, bears, and wolverines maintain substantial populations sharing space with high human densities. This challenged the assumption that large carnivores require vast roadless wilderness, demonstrating that coexistence in working, human-dominated landscapes is achievable at continental scale. The findings carry global significance for big cats, suggesting that predators can persist alongside people where societies establish the legal and social conditions for coexistence. It matters for prioritization because it reframes the goal from segregating carnivores into protected wilderness toward enabling coexistence across shared landscapes, an approach increasingly necessary as human use expands across the ranges of the world's cats.