Use of predator controls to address human wildlife conflict

Abstract

Conservation professionals are becoming more proactive in collaborating with local communities when developing strategies for coexisting with predators. Community perceptions are, however, often still ignored including the social dynamics underlying residents’ relationships with predator species and people’s attitudes towards solutions that are suggested within conservation interventions. The effectiveness of interventions to mitigate or eliminate conflict are highly dependent on the context of the conflict, the landscape and communities involved as well as species behavior. Human-predator conflict persists in most landscapes where predators and livestock overlap spatially, and in many regions farmers and pastoralists are experiencing increased losses from felids, bears, and canids. How communities perceive the risk of predators to their livelihoods and the efficacy of methods to reduce risk are important factors for building local support and long-term success of conservation. While researchers often focus on quantitative measures of risk and efficacy of prevention tools, the negative impacts to wildlife stemming from human-predator conflict is emotionally and culturally driven by the communities that are being affected. The importance of perception is often overlooked in human wildlife conflict studies but is crucial to understand for development of long-term success in conflict reduction strategies.