Harvesting is a human-imposed selective pressure. Harvest-induced mortality is not random and mostly targets heritable traits. Human harvest may impose an artificial selection pressure on life history traits, often opposite to natural selection. Therefore in harvested populations life history strategies will evolve under natural and human imposed selective pressures, favoring individuals with the highest fitness. In ungulate populations hunting is the most common cause of adult mortality. By increasing adult mortality, hunting may have both ecological and evolutionary consequences affecting phenotypic traits and life history strategies. Typically, in sexually dimorphic species large horn and weapon size is the major determinant of success in male-male competition. Large males gain high dominance rank and enjoy high reproductive success. By removing males with large horn and body size, hunters may favor small individuals, opposite to sexual selection. In long lived mammals longevity is the main determinant in female reproductive success. Typically females reproduce once a year, therefore in the energy allocation trade-off they invest more in body maintenance and survival rather than reproduction to increase lifetime reproductive success. By increasing adult female mortality hunting may reduce age and size at maturation, selecting for a strategy of early maturation and great current maternal investment. In this thesis I studied chamois ecology and evolution by comparing hunted and unhunted populations. I tested for possible differences in life history traits and examined the ecological and evolutionary consequence of hunting. In the chamois populations under study phenotypic traits and reproductive strategies were not strongly affected by hunting. There was no evidence of a strong evolutionary effect of sport hunting on horn length or body mass of adult males or yearlings. Although hunters seek long horned males, hunter selectivity is unlikely to lead to an artificial selective pressure on horn size. I found few differences in body and horn size between hunted and protected populations, suggesting the absence of strong effects of hunting on male phenotype. Although yearling body mass declined over time in both hunted populations, environmental factors explained much of the trends. The combination of low variability in adult horn length, weak correlation between horn length and body mass for adult males and strong compensatory horn growth apparently reduced the potential for hunters to selectively remove young adult males with vigorous growth. Although early development in body and horn growth affected reproductive potential in young and senescent females chamois, I found no evidence that female early development affected hunter selectivity. Sport harvest did not appear to have strong impacts on the evolution of phenotypic traits and reproductive strategies of female chamois, likely because of a low harvest rate and weak selection for long-horned females as hunters appeared more concerned with avoiding lactating females. The biology of chamois seems to prevent impact of selective hunting, at least in the case of weak hunting pressure.

Management of big wildlife such as bears can be a difficult task, especially in the face of human-wildlife conflict and demands of the hunting industry. The Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) population at Yusufeli County (Artvin, northeastern Turkey) has recently been the focus of scientific, social and economic concerns. This study population of c. 140 individuals occurs within 800 km2 of forested and alpine land. Legal hunting of male bears was allowed in 2007 after an interval of four years. This study aims to find out through a population viability analysis the level and frequency of trophy hunting this population can tolerate for the next 50 years. A matrix model with six age-classes for each sex was constructed using observed and literature-based parameter values. RAMAS Metapop was used to simulate four different scenarios where numbers of hunted bears and hunting frequency changes. The model was highly sensitive to maximum growth rate and adult survival. Interval extinction probabilities for the next 50 years ranged between 0% and 26% depending on the scenario. Viable scenarios (with an extinction probability &lt / 0.05) were only possible with either no trophy hunting or hunting of 4 subadult/adult males and 1 adult female every other year. Legal and illegal hunting jointly impact the bear population in a strong way, and when they occur simultaneously every year, they lead to extinction in the long run. Avoidance of illegal killing and a close supervision of trophy hunting are crucial in the management of this bear population.

Magistro darbe tiriama elninių žvėrių populiacijos Jurbarko rajono savivaldybės teritorijoje. Darbo objektas – Jurbarko rajono savivaldybės teritorijos miškų elniniai žvėrys. Darbo tikslas – Įvertinti Jurbarko rajono savivaldybės teritorijojos elninių žvėrių populiacijų gausos ir tankio dinamiką, kokybę pagal ragus ir sumedžiojimo dinamiką. Darbo metodai – Žvėrių gausos ir sumedžiojimo duomenys paimti iš Aplinkos ministerijos oficialių ataskaitų. Elninių žvėrių vertinimo pagal atrankos grupes metodas. Leidinių, literatūros šaltinių analizės metodas, lyginamosios analizės metodas. Darbo rezultatai – Tyrimo metu nustatyta elninių žvėrių popukiacijos dinamika. Nuo 2008 iki 2011 metų briedžių populiacija padidėjo 32%, taurių elnių – 32%, stirnų – 29%. Visų trijų elninių žvėrių lyčių santykis atitinka mėsinės krypties medžioklės ūkio organizavimo principus. Briedžių populiacija nesudaro mažiausio leistino tankio, todėl medžioklė draudžiama, tauriųjų elnių populiacija viršija ekologinį tankį, todėl tikslinga jų gausą reguliuoti intensyviau, kad nebūtų padaryta didelė žala miškų ir žemės ūkiui, stirnų populiačija artėja prie ekologinio tankio ribos, todėl tikslinga gausą reguliuoti intensyviau. Per praėjusius keturis medžioklės sezonus sumedžiota santykinai daugiau atrankinių tauriųjų elnių patinų, o atrankinių stirninų sumedžiojimas padidėjo net 41%, nei prieš 10 metų. Tauriųjų elnių daugiausiai buvo sumedžiota 5–8 ragais, rugsėjo mėnesį, o stirninų daugiausiai buvo sumedžiota 3–5... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In master thesis there were made analyzes about populations of deer animals of Jurbarkas district municipality. Object of work– Deer animals of Jurbarkas district municipality forests. Aim of work– To evaluate dynamic of deer (Cervidae) populations abundance and density in Jurbarkas district municipality forests, quality by horns and entrapment’s dynamic. Research methods– Information of deer abundance and entrapment is collected from official reports of the Ministry of Environment. Deer animals‘ evulation method by selection groups. Publications, literature sources‘ analysis method, comparative analysis method. Results– It was found dynamic of deer animals populations. Population of moose raised by 32 %, red deer – 32 %, roe – 29 % since 2008 until 2011 years. Ratio of all three deer animals sex matches principles of meat hunting organization. Moose hunting is forbidden because of low population. Population of red deer exceeds ecological density so there is necessary to control more intensive to avoid damage in husbandry and forestry. Population of roes is near to the limit of ecological density so there is necessary to control more intensive. There were hunted more selective red deer males. Entrapment of roebucks was increased even by 41% during 10 years. Much of red deers were hunted with 5-8 horns in Septembers. Most of hunted roebucks had 3-5 horns and entrapment is almost identic every month of hunting season.