On the misuse of historical data to set conservation baselines: Wolves in Spain as an example

Long-term information on species trends is needed to accurately assess the magnitude of biodiversity change. Mining wildlife records from historical documents a promising option describe past distributions and estimate conservation baselines. However, have multiple biases, ignoring them can produce distorted views misinform present-day environmental management. Here, we use recently published analyses Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus) ranges in Spain show how gaps biases accounts may lead misleading conclusions about range downgrade targets. We call for adoption predictive models propose guidelines management analysis records.