Merz, Margaret R. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7904-7463
Tranquillo, Claudia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7682-356X
Santicchia, Francesca https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4814-9632
Wauters, Lucas A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4871-5035
Mortelliti, Alessio https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0480-6100
Funding for this research was provided by:
Università degli Studi dell'Insubria
Article History
Received: 15 July 2025
Accepted: 1 December 2025
First Online: 18 December 2025
Declarations
:
: USA-based research was approved by the University of Maine’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC numbers A2015_11_02, A2018_11_01 and A2021-12-01). Legal requirements according to the Italian Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law (L.N. 157 from 1992) and fieldwork was approved by authorization decrees n. 294-34626 of 12 September 2014 from the Provincia di Torino and authorizations n. 62-3025 of 20 March 2017, n. 1015 of 20 March 2020 from Città Metropolitana di Torino, and by authorization decrees n. 1938 of 18 February 2020 from Direzione Generale Agricoltura, Alimentazione E Sistemi Verdi, Regione Lombardia.
: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.