红狐狸不需要太多介绍。它们是类似狗的食肉动物 - 拥有世界上最宽的哺乳动物分布之一，即狗般的食肉动物。由于它们的极端适应能力，他们成功地殖民了地球上几乎所有的陆地环境，从北部的冰冷苔原到炎热的澳大利亚内陆。

They also cope well with landscape types that are heavily modified by humans, such as for example agricultural landscapes and even cities. Here, they find all the required resources in abundance and, as a result, can become very abundant themselves.

这本身并不是问题，但它可以成为狐狸捕食的物种。在其栖息地需求中非常专业的物种通常会因栖息地的丧失而难以生存在零散的景观中，这也是由于其余栖息地碎片的适合性较低。想象一个被农田包围的小森林。尽管狐狸对这些物种捕食是正常的，但是在这种情况下，对于某些物种来说，高掠食性损失可能成为棺材中的钉子。

直观地说,它是声名狼籍n impossible to reverse changes to the landscape and its habitats. Instead, wildlife managers and conservation practitioners often attempt to control populations of abundant predators (including foxes) to benefit prey, usually by means of culling. However, owing to a variety of reasons (e.g. the legal framework, property rights, limited resources), control attempts often take place in comparatively small areas bordering on non-hunted sites that act as a source of foxes to compensate the cull.

Despite their widespread occurrence, the effectiveness of such control attempts in terms of their conservation returns is rarely evaluated and therefore not well understood. This may imply that their application is legitimized by conservation targets that are, in fact, often not being achieved.

When we talk about effectiveness, we mean two things: first off, control attempts need to cause a reduction

in fox abundance of relevant magnitude at the target site. More importantly though, reduced abundance needs to be reflected by reduced predation risk for the prey species over a period of time that is considered particularly relevant, such as its reproduction.

简而言之，当我们决定支持杀死野生动物种群时，我们需要确保这实际上将为受威胁的猎物生存带来更好的机会。否则，道德和经济问题都使此事过于争议，无法成为保护的管理工具。

This is the issue we tackled in a recent research project using fox culls in fragmented montane forests as a study system. Using camera-supervised ‘artificial nests’ consisting of brown chicken eggs placed in the forest to serve as a standardized index of predation risk, we evaluated whether incentivized, but spatially heterogeneous fox culls led to a reduction in predation risk and the probability of encountering a fox at hunted sites.

我们选择了2017年和2018年的初月，以使我们的实验与当地威胁的猎物的生殖时期相吻合：Capercaillie，Capercaillie，这是一种相当专心的鸟类，在成熟且结构良好的森林林座上筑巢。大多数淘汰是在研究期间的冬季发生的。

Using statistical models, we did not find an effect of restricted-area fox culls on predation risk, nor a lower probability of encountering a fox at hunted sites. We know from other research (including our own) that culls of this magnitude can reduce local fox abundance, but effects appear to be compensated by fox populations too rapidly for conservation benefits to manifest. This was the case despite cull intensity likely exceeding red fox density in the area.

有趣的是（与以前的工作相反），景观分散程度之间没有关系本身和our index of predation risk, as soon as we had accounted for differences in predator abundance. Instead, predation risk appeared to be driven directly by the abundance of foxes in the landscape around a plot. This suggests that the increased abundance of generalist mesopredators in diverse, fragmented landscape types may be a key factor for elevated predation rates.

The practical implementation of our work is that predator control attempts will – to be effective as a conservation tool – need to be spatially and temporally coordinated to match the biology of both the predator and the target prey species. Whether this can be feasible, depends strongly on regional and local ecosystem contexts and must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Otherwise, there is currently little evidence to support uncoordinated culls as a conservation measure.