MISSION

Large carnivores are among the most controversial and challenging groups of species to conserve and manage in our modern and crowded world. Their large spatial requirements and predatory behavior, among other factors, lead to a continuous conflict with human interests and complex scenarios of coexistence, management and conservation. In the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) wolves have persisted during the last centuries in a human-dominated landscape. In this context, the Iberian wolf population may provide insight into the factors and processes favoring the coexistence of wolves and humans, as well as its consequences. Following an interdisciplinary and transboundary approach, the Iberian Wolf Research Team (IWRT) aims to generate scientific knowledge on the ecology, behavior and evolution of wolves ultimately to inform managers, policy-makers and other interested stakeholders for an efficient wolf conservation, sustainable management, wolf-human conflict mitigation and coexistence. Our mission also includes understanding the effects of human activities on populations of large carnivores, using the wolf as a model species.