Humans drive spatial variation in mortality risk for a threatened wolf population in a Canis hybrid zone

Large carnivores often exhibit high survival rates in protected areas, whereas intentional and unintentional human-caused mortality may be greater in adjacent areas. These patterns can result in source-sink dynamics and limit population expansion beyond protected areas.
We used telemetry data from 438 canids in 141 packs collected from 2002–2020 to evaluate mortality risk for wolves, coyotes, and admixed canids in a 3-species hybrid zone in and adjacent to a large protected area in Ontario, Canada. The hybrid zone is occupied by most of the remaining eastern wolves (Canis lycaon), a rare, threatened species that hybridizes with sympatric eastern coyotes (C. latrans) and Great Lakes gray wolves (C. lupus).
Within Algonquin Provincial Park (APP), annual human-caused mortality from harvest and vehicles was low (0.06, 95% CI [0.03, 0.08]), whereas annual human-caused mortality was higher in adjacent areas (0.31, 95% CI [0.25, 0.37]). Smaller protected areas implemented to help protect east..., , , # Humans drive spatial variation in mortality risk for a threatened wolf population in a Canis hybrid zone

Description of the data and file structure:

These data are the files needed to reproduce the results of the mortality risk modeling, survival rates, and cause-specific mortality rates provided in Benson et al. (2024). Humans drive spatial variation in mortality risk for a threatened wolf population in a Canis hybrid zone.

There are 7 files which correspond to the 6 mortality risk model sets (suitable for Cox proportional hazards modeling and Kaplan-Meier Survival rate estimation) presented and explained in Benson et al. (2024) and the cause-specific mortality analysis. Here are descriptions of the data contained in each column in each file. Many of the column names and data are the same in different files, and in these cases, they are only described once. Then in subsequent files, only the new columns are described.

**A. ModelSet1_SurvivalData_RecoveryZone_ResidentsNonResiden...