Neil Henderson Carter

University of Michigan | U-M · School for Environment and Sustainability

The success or failure of apex carnivore reintroduction efforts can hinge on understanding and attending to diverse viewpoints of those involved in and impacted by reintroductions. Yet, viewpoints vary widely due to a suite of complex and intersecting factors, such as values, beliefs and sociocultural context. We ask, ‘what are the diverse viewpoin...

Because it can lead to retaliatory killing, livestock depredation by large carnivores is among the foremost threats to carnivore conservation, and it severely impacts human well‐being worldwide. Ongoing climate change can amplify these human–wildlife conflicts, but such issues are largely unexplored, though are becoming increasingly recognized. Her...

Understanding the extent to which people and wildlife overlap in space and time is critical for the conservation of biodiversity and ecological services. Yet, how global change will reshape the future of human-wildlife overlap has not been assessed. We show that the potential spatial overlap of global human populations and 22,374 terrestrial verteb...

International conservation efforts and prohibitionary drug intersect in unexpected ways throughout the Meso-american Biological Corridor (MBC). US-led counterdrug interdiction of transnational cocaine trafficking, or 'narco-trafficking', is increasingly pushing narco-traffickers and their associated environmental destruction into protected areas (P...

Human-carnivore conflict in agrarian landscapes poses a significant threat to both large carnivore populations and human livelihoods. Conservation strategies aimed at mitigating conflict often rely primarily on ecological, landscape-scale factors. However, assessing the influence of microhabitat, as well as local variation in human perceptions, can...

Many of the world's iconic, endangered and endemic species rely on large, contiguous landscapes for their survival. In the US West, working ranches are integral to large landscape conservation goals and there are numerous influences on ranchers' conservation actions, including their relational values, perceived self‐efficacy and property rights con...

The Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) is the primary mechanism for controlling international wildlife trade and preventing overexploitation, but measuring its efficacy is difficult, which complicates management efforts. We examined the effects of CITES listings on the trade of freshwater turtles from the US and compare...

Enhancing habitat connectivity is a key strategy for conserving endangered species in anthropogenic landscapes. However, connectivity planning often overlooks the crucial energetic costs to animals of traversing complex terrains. We applied a novel approach for estimating energy costs of movement for tigers – a globally endangered species. We used...

Data that influence policy and major investment decisions risk entrenching social and political inequities

Wide-ranging carnivores experience tradeoffs between dynamic resource availabilities and heterogeneous risks from humans, with consequences for their ecological function and conservation outcomes. Yet, research investigating these tradeoffs across large carnivore distributions is rare. We assessed how resource availability and anthropogenic risks i...

Conserving species' ability to traverse the landscape is vital for maintaining biodiversity in the face of global change. Connectivity conservation requires identifying important pathways for species' movements and aligning societal support for conservation of those pathways. Contemporary connectivity analyses emphasize the impacts of topography, v...

Abstract Solitary carnivores are an ecologically important taxa and at a high risk of extinction worldwide. Interactions between conspecifics can influence fitness outcomes and may help these animals cope with environmental and anthropogenic disturbances. However, the structure and maintenance of these interactions in solitary carnivore species is...

Road networks pose many well-documented threats to wildlife, from fragmenting habitats and restricting movement to causing mortality through vehicle collisions. For large, wide-ranging mammals, home range requirements and seasonal migrations often necessitate road crossings, posing threats to human safety, property, and animal survival. Artificial...

Climate change and habitat loss are recognized as important drivers of shifts in wildlife species' geographic distributions. While often considered independently, there is considerable overlap between these drivers, and understanding how they contribute to range shifts can predict future species assemblages and inform effective management. Our obje...

Vegetation structure is a crucial dimension of wildlife habitat, responsive to global changes in human activities and ecosystem processes. NASA’s recent Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) provides an exciting opportunity to explore how spaceborne waveform observations can improve our ability to measure wildlife habitat and advance anima...

Roads pose a major, and growing, challenge for the conservation of endangered species. However, very little is known about how endangered species behaviorally respond to roads and what that means for road mitigation strategies. We used the nation-wide lockdown in Nepal during the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment to investigate how dramatic...

Climate change and human–wildlife conflict are both pressing challenges for biodiversity conservation and human well-being in the Anthropocene. Climate change is a critical yet underappreciated amplifier of human–wildlife conflict, as it exacerbates resource scarcity, alters human and animal behaviours and distributions, and increases human–wildlif...

There is an urgent need to sustainably coexist with wildlife. However, realizing this goal is hampered by scant understanding of the processes that facilitate and maintain coexistence. Here, we synthesize human-wildlife interactions into eight archetypal outcomes, from eradication to sustained co-benefits, which collectively serve as a heuristic fo...

Illegal wildlife trade is a global threat to biodiversity, but its drivers and impacts and ways to combat it vary by taxa. News media framing of instances of illegal trade provides a novel window into understanding public perceptions of these dynamics and potential support for management actions. We used 54 known cases of illegal turtle trade in th...

The rapid development of transport infrastructure is a major threat to endangered species worldwide. Roads and railways can increase animal mortality, fragment habitats, and exacerbate other threats to biodiversity. Predictive models that forecast the future impacts to endangered species can guide land-use planning in ways that proactively reduce t...

Abstract To learn from, and therefore improve upon, conservation projects, their strengths, weaknesses and outcomes require critical evaluation. We conducted an impact evaluation on the Living with Tigers project (LWT), using a socio-ecological approach to investigate the outcomes of interventions implemented during 2016-2019, to foster human-feli...

Landscape connectivity is important for conserving wildlife in spaces shared with humans. Yet, differences in human attitudes and behaviors within movement corridors can lead to spatial variation in the risks humans pose to wildlife. Mapping the spatial pattern of attitudes toward wildlife provides a useful tool for measuring this variation and pro...

Although research on wildlife species across taxa has shown that males and females may differentially select habitat, sex-specific habitat suitability models for endangered species are uncommon. We developed sex-specific models for Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris) based on camera trapping data collected from 20 January to 22 March 2010 within Chitwa...

Illicit supply networks (ISNs) are composed of coordinated human actors that source, transit, and distribute illicitly traded goods to consumers, while also creating widespread social and environmental harms. Despite growing documentation of ISNs and their impacts, efforts to understand and disrupt ISNs remain insufficient due to the persistent lac...

Species that depend on anthropogenic waste for food can remove pathogens that pose health risks to humans and livestock, thereby saving lives and money. Quantifying these benefits is rare, yet can lead to innovative conservation solutions. To assess these benefits, we examined the feeding ecology and population size of peri‐urban spotted hyenas Cro...

Two vital policy aims—biodiversity conservation and food production—are increasingly in conflict. Efforts to evaluate trade‐offs between agriculture and conservation have shaped scholarly discourse around two broad strategies to agricultural production that seek to either “share” land with biodiversity or “spare” land from agriculture. However, eff...

Synopsis Global expansion of lighting and noise pollution alters how animals receive and interpret environmental cues. However, we lack a cross-taxon understanding of how animal traits influence species vulnerability to this growing phenomenon. This knowledge is needed to improve the design and implementation of policies that mitigate or reduce sen...

1. Negative interactions between large terrestrial predators and livestock is a global phenomenon. The resultant conflicts can threaten the livelihoods and cultural traditions of those living closest to predator populations and jeopardize the conservation of predator species. These challenges are pronounced in the United States, where predator cons...

The extent of artificial night light and anthropogenic noise (i.e., “light” and “noise”) impacts is global and has the capacity to threaten species across diverse ecosystems. Existing research involving impacts of light or noise has primarily focused on noise or light alone and single species; however, these stimuli often co-occur and little is kno...

With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the Unite...

A hallmark of the Anthropocene is the global expansion of pollution stemming from electric lighting. This evolutionarily novel phenomenon has left few spaces on Earth where natural light cycles remain unaltered. Assessing the exposure of species to light pollution is critical for developing conservation plans that address this expanding sensory pol...

The human footprint index (HFI) is an extensively used tool for interpreting the accelerating pressure of humanity on Earth. Up to now, the process of creating the HFI has required significant data and modeling, and updated versions of the index often lag the present day by many years. Here we introduce a near-present, global-scale machine learning...

Conservation of predators – especially large carnivores and those that potentially pose threats to humans – can be controversial among stakeholders who must coexist with them. What is often overlooked, however, are the direct and indirect ecosystem services and disservices predators provide as a result of consumption of herbivores (“predation servi...

Special Issue: Methods for integrated assessment of human–wildlife interactions and coexistence in agricultural landscapes. „Human–wildlife coexistence in science and practice“ (ed) @ConservationSP; featuring 14 contributions from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, USA. Major focus on wolf/carnivore-livestock interactions, elephants & cranes

Global expansion of lighting and noise pollution alters how animals receive and interpret environmental cues. Yet we lack a cross-taxon understanding of how animal traits influence species vulnerability to this growing phenomenon. This knowledge is needed to improve the design and implementation of policies that mitigate or reduce sensory pollutant...

Expansion of anthropogenic noise and night lighting across our planet1,2 is of increasing conservation concern3–6. Despite growing knowledge of physiological and behavioural responses to these stimuli from single-species and local-scale studies, whether these pollutants affect fitness is less clear, as is how and why species vary in their sensitivi...

Artificial nightlight is increasingly recognized as an important environmental disturbance that influences the habitats and fitness of numerous species. However, its effects on wide‐ranging vertebrates and their interactions remain unclear. Light pollution has the potential to amplify land‐use change, and as such, answering the question of how this...

The integration of citizen scientists into ecological research is transforming how, where, and when data are collected, and expanding the potential scales of ecological studies. Citizen‐science projects can provide numerous benefits for participants while educating and connecting professionals with lay audiences, potentially increasing the acceptan...

Sustainable development goals such as global food security and biodiversity conservation can conflict because these efforts create situations where humans and wildlife share landscapes, often leading to interactions that detrimentally affect both groups. Therefore, coexistence between humans and wildlife is more likely when adaptation strategies pr...

Fundamental to the success of sustainable development is a foundation of intact ecosystems. While the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15, “Life on Land”, seeks to protect biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems, accelerating human-driven changes across the Earth system are undermining efforts to preserve biodiversity. Understanding this...

Decision-making about large carnivores is complex and controversial, and processes vary from deliberation and expert analysis to ballot boxes and courtrooms. Decision-makers range from neighboring landowners to the United Nations. Efficacy, longevity and legitimacy of policies may often depend as much on process as the policy itself. Overcoming con...

Human perception of risks related to economic damages caused by nearby wildlife can be transmitted through social networks. Understanding how sharing risk information within a human community alters the spatial dynamics of human‐wildlife interactions has important implications for the design and implementation of effective conservation actions. We...

Roads are proliferating worldwide at an unprecedented rate, with potentially severe impacts on wildlife. We calculated the extent and potential impacts of road networks across the 1,160,000-km 2 , 13-country range of the globally endangered tiger (Panthera tigris)-a conservation umbrella species. We found that roads were pervasive, totaling 134,000...

Mesocarnivores constitute a diverse and often abundant group of species, which are increasingly occupying hweigher trophic levels within multi‐use landscapes. Yet, we know relatively little about their interactions with each other, especially in human‐altered areas. Using camera trap data collected in a forestry concession in the Greater Gorongosa...

Maps of the human footprint allow ecologists to identify the wildest lands on the planet, track their decline, and prioritize wildland conservation efforts. Other research efforts have mapped biological intactness and identified conservation priorities to protect biodiversity. However, little research has involved the use of historical references t...

Global expansion of human activities is associated with the introduction of novel stimuli, such as anthropogenic noise, artificial lights and chemical agents. Progress in documenting the ecological effects of sensory pollutants is weakened by sparse knowledge of the mechanisms underlying these effects. This severely limits our capacity to devise mi...

Human-carnivore coexistence is an oft-stated goal but assumptions about what constitutes coexistence can lead to goal misalignment and undermine policy and program efficacy. Questions about how to define coexistence remain and specific goals and methods for reaching coexistence require refining. Co-adaptation, where humans adapt to carnivores and v...

The future of conservation and human-wildlife relationships in the American West is at a defining moment. The region consists of a mosaic of land-cover types, with large amounts of public land under varying degrees of protection, use, and ownership. This public land provides the foundation for high levels of connectivity and habitat for healthy pop...

Carnivore and humans live in proximity due to carnivore recovery efforts and ongoing human encroachment into carnivore habitats globally. The American West is a region that uniquely exemplifies these human-carnivore dynamics, however, it is unclear how the research community here integrates social and ecological factors to examine human-carnivore r...

The American West exists in the popular imagination as a distinct region, and policies and politics often suggest that both the challenges and the opportunities for land management and human well-being across the region are relatively homogeneous. In this paper, we argue that there are key characteristics that define the West as a social-ecological...

Determining the ‘space race’ between co‐occurring species is crucial to understand the effects of interspecific interactions on the extinction risk of species threatened by poachers and predators. Dynamic two‐species occupancy models provide a flexible framework to decompose complex species interaction patterns, while accounting for imperfect detec...

Abstract Prey depletion is a major threat to the conservation of large carnivore species globally. However, at the policy‐relevant scale of protected areas, we know little about how the spatial distribution of prey depletion affects carnivore space use and population persistence. We developed a spatially explicit, agent‐based model to investigate t...

Wildlife conservation in the Anthropocene means there is a pressing need to find ways for wildlife and humans to share landscapes. However, this is challenging due to the complex interactions that occur within social-ecological systems (SES). This challenge is exemplified by grey wolf management in the American West, where human governance systems...

Determining the range dynamics of co-occurring species is crucial to assess the extinction risk of species threatened by poaching. Multi-species site-occupancy models allow the examination of distribution patterns of species while accounting for imperfect detection. These models can be extended to describe species interactions explicitly, by consid...

Sustaining wildlife populations, which provide both ecosystem services and disservices, represents a worldwide conservation challenge. The ecosystem services and Ostrom's social–ecological systems frameworks have been adopted across natural and social sciences to characterize benefits from nature. Despite their generalizability, individually they d...

Wildlife species harmful to humans are often targets of control and elimination programs. A contemporary example is the tsetse fly, a vector of sleeping sickness and African animal trypanosomosis. Tsetse flies have recently been targeted by a pan-African eradication campaign. If it is successful, the campaign could push the entire tsetse family to...

Natural resource and wildlife managers must balance the disparate priorities of a diversity of stakeholders. To manage these priorities, a firm understanding of topics salient to the public is needed. The media often report on issues of importance to the public; therefore, these reports may be a useful measure of public interest. However, efficient...

We present data from the first, long-term study underway of a recovering population of indigenous, free-ranging Panthera leo in Gorongosa National Park (GNP), Mozambique. GNP is undergoing post-war recovery and large-scale ecological restoration under a 25-year private-governmental partnership – the “Gorongosa Project (GP),” – offering a rare oppor...

We present data from the first, long-term study underway of a recovering population of indigenous, free-ranging Panthera leo in Gorongosa National Park (GNP), Mozambique. GNP is undergoing post-war recovery and large-scale ecological restoration under a 25-year private-governmental partnership – the “Gorongosa Project (GP),” – offering a rare oppor...

An integrated understanding of both social and ecological aspects of environmental issues is essential to address pressing sustainability challenges. An integrated social-ecological systems perspective is purported to provide a better understanding of the complex relationships between humans and nature. Despite a threefold increase in the amount of...