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HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICTS
Conflicts between human and wildlife populations are emerging as a major conservation issue worldwide. Crop raiders, including elephants, many primates, several bird species, and small rodent-like animals can diminish or destroy farmers' food and cash crops. Carnivores and larger crop raiders can also threaten the lives of both humans and livestock, and are often presumed to be a threat and shot on sight.
To help wildlife survive in populated regions, HDP researchers are studying how to better predict human-wildlife conflicts and help communities mitigate these threats. | |
| | | These carnivores were killed because they were a potential threat to people and livestock. HDP researchers hire local people to monitor wildlife numbers and locations, and work with communities to stop what is known as carnivore cleansing. | | | |  | | | |
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HDP and its partners are using spatial modeling of landscapes along with economic data to identify the key locations of human-wildlife conflicts. These analyses are used to develop and field-test strategies to productively manage these conflicts.
In India and Bolivia, for example, HDP staff support monitoring, predicting, evaluating, and mitigating conflicts between human populations and specific wildlife species including tigers, leopards, spectacled bears, condors, and numerous other endangered species. Using geographic information system (GIS) technology to combine land cover and economic data can determine the villages where conflict is most likely to occur. Training residents in mitigation measures can save the lives of people and wildlife.
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and CABS researchers are collaborating to bring more attention to research-based solutions to human-wildlife conflicts. A symposium organized by the HDP program at the 2002 Society for Conservation Biology meetings resulted in a special December 2003 issue of the journal Conservation Biology (vol. 17, no. 6) focusing on Human-Wildlife conflict issues.
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Treves, A. & Karanth, K.U. 2003. Human-carnivore conflict: Local solutions with global applications. Introduction. Conservation Biology 17(6): 1489-1490. Reprint courtesy of Blackwell Publishing.
Treves, A. & Karanth, K.U. 2003. Human-carnivore conflict and perspectives on carnivore management worldwide. Conservation Biology 17(6): 1491-1499. Reprint courtesy of Blackwell Publishing.
Carnivore conservation depends on the sociopolitical landscape as much as the biological landscape. Changing political attitudes and views of nature have shifted the goals of carnivore management from those based on fear and narrow economic interests to those based on a better understanding of ecosystem function and adaptive management. In parallel, aesthetic and scientific arguments against lethal control techniques are encouraging the development of nonlethal approaches to carnivore management. We anticipate greater success in modifying the manner and frequency with which the activities of humans and domestic animals intersect with those of carnivores. Success should permit carnivore populations to persist for decades despite human population growth and modification of habitat.
Shivik, J.A., Treves, A., & Callahan, P. 2003. Nonlethal techniques for managing predation: Primary and secondary repellents. Conservation Biology 17(6): 1531-1537. Reprint courtesy of Blackwell Publishing.
Conservation biology requires the development of practical tools and techniques to minimize conflicts arising from human modification of ecosystems. We applied behavioral theory of primary and secondary repellents to predator management by using aversive stimulus devices (electronic training collars) and disruptive stimulus devices (behavior-contingent audio and visual repellents) in a multipredator (Canis lupus, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Ursus spp.) study in the United States. We examined fladry and a newly developed disruptive stimulus device contingent upon behavior on six wolf territories in Wisconsin, (U. S. A.) and determined that the disruptive stimulus device gave the greatest degree of protection from predation. We also compared the efficacy of a primary repellent (disruptive stimulus device) versus a secondary repellent (electronic training collars) to keep captive wolves from consuming a food source. Disruptive stimulus devices effectively prevented captive wolves from consuming the food resource, but did not produce an aversion to that food resource. With training collars, logistical and behavioral variability limited our ability to condition wolves. Our studies highlight the complexity of application of nonlethal techniques in real-world situations.
Naughton-Treves, L., Grossberg, R., & Treves, A. 2003. Paying for tolerance: Rural citizens' attitudes toward wolf depredation and compensation. Conservation Biology 17(6): 1500-1511. Reprint courtesy of Blackwell Publishing.
As wolf (Canis lupus) populations recover in Wisconsin (USA), their depredations on livestock, pets, and hunting dogs have increased. We used a mail-back survey to assess the tolerance of 535 rural citizens of wolves and their preferences regarding the management of "problem" wolves. Specifically, we tested whether people who had lost domestic animals to wolves or other predators were less tolerant of wolves than neighboring residents who had not and whether compensation payments improved tolerance of wolves. We assessed tolerance via proxy measures related to an individual's preferred wolf population size for Wisconsin and the likelihood she or he would shoot a wolf. We also measured individuals' approval of lethal control and other wolf-management tactics under five conflict scenarios. Multivariate analysis revealed that the strongest predictor of tolerance was social group. Bear (Ursus americanus) hunters were concerned about losing valuable hounds to wolves and were more likely to approve of lethal control and reducing the wolf population than were livestock producers, who were more concerned than general residents. To a lesser degree, education level, experience of loss, and gender were also significant. Livestock producers and bear hunters who had been compensated for their losses to wolves were not more tolerant than their counterparts who alleged a loss but received no compensation. Yet all respondents approved of compensation payments as a management strategy. Our results indicate that deep-rooted social identity and occupation are more powerful predictors of tolerance of wolves than individual encounters with these large carnivores.
Treves, A., Naughton-Treves, L., Harper, E.K., Mladenoff, D.J., Rose, R.A., Sickley, T.A., & Wydeven, A.P. 2004. Predicting human-carnivore conflict: A spatial model derived from 25 years of data on wolf predation on livestock. Conservation Biology 18(1): 1523-1739. Reprint courtesy of Blackwell Publishing.
Many carnivore populations escaped extinction during the twentieth century as a result of legal protections, habitat restoration, and changes in public attitudes. However, encounters between carnivores, livestock, and humans are increasing in some areas, raising concerns about the costs of carnivore conservation. We present a method to predict sites of human-carnivore conflicts regionally, using as an example the mixed forest-agriculture landscapes of Wisconsin and Minnesota (USA). We used a matched-pair analysis of 17 landscape variables in a geographic information system to discriminate affected areas from unaffected areas at two spatial scales (townships and farms). Wolves (Canis lupus) selectively preyed on livestock in townships with high proportions of pasture and high densities of deer (Odocoileus virginianus) combined with low proportions of crop lands, coniferous forest, herbaceous wetlands, and open water. These variables plus road density and farm size also appeared to predict risk for individual farms when we considered Minnesota alone. In Wisconsin only, farm size, crop lands, and road density were associated with the risk of wolf attack on livestock. At the level of townships, we generated two state-wide maps to predict the extent and location of future predation on livestock. Our approach can be applied wherever spatial data are available on sites of conflict between wildlife and humans.
Naughton-Treves, L., Mena, J.L., Treves, A., Alvarez, N., & Radeloff, V.C. 2003. Wildlife survival beyond park boundaries: The impact of slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting on mammals in Tambopata, Peru. Conservation Biology 17(4): 1106-1117. Reprint courtesy of Blackwell Publishing.
Finding a balance between strict protection and multiple use requires data on wildlife survival in human-managed ecosystems. We examined the habitat use and species composition of mammals >2 kg in size inhabiting an agroforest ecosystem neighboring a park in the Peruvian Amazon. First, we recorded wildlife presence in fields, fallows, and forests within one settlement over a 9-month period. Then we monitored wildlife presence over 21 months in 42 fields across a 65-km transect, including remote and highly disturbed sites. We tested for correlations between the size and number of mammal species visiting fields and human activities measured at different scales. Hunting intensity more powerfully predicted the average biomass and species diversity observed infields than did vegetation disturbance. The number of commercial hunters in the surrounding community had a stronger impact than did the individual field owner's hunting intensity. Large-bodied species appeared only in remote farms neighboring uninhabited areas in the reserve, indicating that undisturbed forests act as sources for wildlife dispersing into agricultural regions. Farmers in these remote areas experience greater crop and livestock losses to wildlife, but by hunting large game they are able to offset losses with bushmeat gains. In more disturbed areas, crop losses exceeded bushmeat gains, although both occurred at negligible levels. Our case study suggests that large herbivores, large carnivores, and most primates are unlikely to persist in multiple-use zones in Amazonian forests unless hunting is effectively restricted. Even highly disturbed agroforests are not empty of wildlife, however, but are inhabited by a suite of adaptable, fast-reproducing species able to withstand human activity (e.g., brown agoutis [Dasyprocta variegata], armadillos [Dasypus novemcinetus], and red brocket deer [Mazama gauazoubira]). These "weedy" species may not be of immediate concern to conservation biologists, and they will not attract tourists. But they have both economic and ecological value and deserve to be taken into account in management decisions.
Naughton-Treves, L. 2002. Wild animals in the garden: Conserving wildlife in Amazonian agroecosystems. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92(3): 488-506.
In this article, I draw on field research in the Peruvian Amazon to evaluate the impact of individual and regional land, use practices (hunting, forest-clearing, and fallowing) on wildlife survival. More broadly, I examine the symbolic and practical significance of the garden as a metaphor for wildlife conservation. I focus on Tambopata Province, a region containing diverse wildlife and a variety of "gardens," from swidden fields to national parks. Field data on wildlife presence in swidden gardens reveal the attributes of an anthropogenic fauna: adaptable, fast-reproducing species, including rodents, peccaries, brocket deer, and armadillos. Larger mammals, including most primates and carnivores, are greatly reduced by hunting. Multivariate analyses show that wildlife abundance and species diversity are more strongly shaped by regional land use and community-level hunting practices than by individual "gardeners." In Tambopata (Peru), multiple interest groups stake claims on the forests and wildlife within protected areas, leading at times to violent conflict and/or redrawn boundaries. The garden metaphor is ultimately misleading for conservationists, as it conveys a false sense of benign mastery and control over nature and other humans.
Treves, A., Jurewicz, R.R., Naughton-Treves, L., Rose, R.A., Willging, R.C., & Wydeven, A.P. 2002. Wolf depredation on domestic animals in Wisconsin, 1976-2000. Wildlife Society Bulletin 30(1): 231-241.
As wolves (Canis lupus) recolonize mixed forest and agriculture areas in the Lake Superior region of the United States, their depredations on livestock are increasing, along with public complaints and compensation payments. We documented 176 complaints about wolves in Wisconsin between 1976 and 2000 and analyzed the regional and temporal patterns for the 87 verified incidents involving the injury or death of 377 domestic animals. Calves were the most frequent target of wolf depredation, but game-farm deer losses demanded higher compensation payments. Sixty-six property owners were affected by wolf depredations over the 25-year period examined. Compensation costs averaged $96.00 per capita of wolf/year. Two thirds of 71 breeding wolf packs were never suspected of causing depredations, but 4 packs were involved in greater than or equal to4 incidents. These data were collated to aid in preventing wolf depredation and provide a foundation for policy-making surrounding the impending federal delisting of the wolf.
Treves, A., Naughton-Treves, L. 2002. Wolves in Dairyland. Wildlife Conservation 105(1): 10.Chapman, C.A., Lawes, M.J., Naughton-Treves, L., Gillespie, T.R. 2003. Primate survival in community-owned forest fragments: Are metapopulation models useful amidst intensive use? In L.K. Marsh. (Ed.), Primates in Fragments: Ecology and Conservation. pp. 68-73. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.Naughton-Treves, L., Rose, R., Treves, A. 2001. Social and spatial dimensions of human-elephant conflict in Africa: A literature review and case studies from Uganda and Cameroon. Report to the African Elephant Specialist Group, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, pp. 80.Mena, J.L. & Naughton-Treves, L. 2001. Vida Silvestre en sistemas agro-ecologicos de la Zona Reservada Tambopata Candamo. 48 pp. Puerto Maldonado, Peru: Conservacion Internacional. | |
| |  | | New Presentations on Hydrological Services Available Online: Sampurno Bruijnzeel, tropical hydrology expert, talks about vegetation, reforestation, and hydrological services in two CI-sponsored presentations.
Oct. 16 presentation at the World Bank (8 MB PDF)
Oct. 17 presentation at CI (7.2 MB PDF)New CABS Brochure Now Available: Click here to view the latest CABS brochure. Contact us to order a hard copy. The Environmental Systems Research Institute Awards CABS’ GIS & Mapping Lab: The Institute honored the Lab for the fifth time in six years, awarding it First Place in the Best Cartographic Design - Single Map Product category for the Coppename River AquaRAP by Mark Denil.
View the winning map Hotspots Revisited Available Online. Hotspots Revisited details the state of the earth's biodiversity hotspots. The book identifies 34 regions that cover only 2.3 percent of the Earth's surface but are home to 75 percent of the planet's most threatened species.
View Hotspots Revisited | |
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