This is Scientific American 60 Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. Got a minute?

Humans have historically seen large carnivores such as wolves and bears as threats to our livelihoods or lives.

They might say eat our sheep or our family.

So as the human population has grown,

the numbers of large carnivores

has generally plummeted, which has unfortunate consequences. For example, without wolves. has There's good news out of Europe. Some large carnivores are rebounding. The finding is in the journal Science.

Researchers evaluated populations of brown bears, Eurasian lynx, gray wolves, and wolverines in mainland Europe,

not including Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

They found that a third of the remaining area has at least one large carnivore species.

Scandinavia hosts all four species, and the numbers are generally either stable or increasing.

Interestingly, most of the carnivores are found outside protected conservation areas.

A variety of reasons accounts for the success story.

European laws protect carnivores and larger open tracts of land

host increasing prey. Stable political systems makes it easier to enforce the laws and

older traditions of protecting livestock via guard dogs, fences, and shepherds have been

supplemented by non-lethal electric fences.

The researchers say the study shows that carnivores and humans can live together in much greater densities.

They note that the area examined has

double the human population density of the US but it also has twice as many wolves

the better to keep the deer in check. Thanks for the minute.

For Scientific American 60 Second Science, I'm Cynthia Graber.