Large carnivores thrive in Europe

EUROPE has only four big meat-eating mammals. 

Two of them, the lynx and the wolverine, aren’t so well known. The wolf and the bear, however, are iconic. Most people think that the big hunters are thin on the ground but, according to a paper in the journal Science, they’re not. Drawing on the work of 76 specialists from 26 countries, the authors claim that Europe’s ‘big four’ are doing rather well and their numbers are increasing.

We now have many more large carnivores than a century ago. Nor are they confined to out-of-the-way places, as is often thought; a third of Europe’s landmass supports at least one species. Human-animal relationships differ from those in North America; European big beasts, it seems, live happily with us and we with them.