Success of animal translocations depends on improving post-release demographic rates toward establishment and subsequent growth of released populations. Short-term metrics for evaluating translocation success and its drivers, like post-release survival and fecundity, are unlikely to represent longer-term outcomes. We used information theory to investigate 25 years of black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) translocations using the offspring recruitment rate (ORR) of translocated females - a metric integrating survival, fecundity and offspring recruitment at sexual maturity - to detect determinants of success. Our analyses produced an unambiguous top model (AICω = 0.986), which predicted that ORR increases with female age at release as a function of lower post-release adult rhino sex ratio (males:females). Delay to first post-release reproduction and failure of some females to recruit any calves to sexual maturity most influenced the pattern of ORRs, with the leading causes of recruitment failure being post-release female death (23% of all females) and failure to calve (24% of surviving females). We recommend translocating older females (≥ 6 years old) because they do not have the reproductive delay and low ORRs of juveniles (< 4 years old), nor the higher rates of recruitment failure of juveniles and young adults (4-5.9 years old). Where translocation of juveniles is necessary, they should be released into female-biased populations where they have higher ORRs. Our study offers the unique advantage of a long-term analysis across a large number of replicate populations - a science-by-management experiment as a proxy for a manipulative experiment, and a rare opportunity, particularly for a large, critically-endangered taxon like the black rhinoceros. Our findings differ from previous recommendations and reinforce the importance of longer-term datasets and comprehensive metrics of translocation success, suggesting we shift our attention from ecological to social constraints on population growth and species recovery, particularly when translocating species with polygynous breeding systems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 April 2019.
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