![]() Model predictions at a landscape scale showed high-risk livestock depredation hotspots inside the park core zone boundary, where livestock grazing is banned but still occasionally occurs. Biodiversity and Conservation (early online). Mapping attack hotspots to mitigate human-carnivore conflict: approaches and applications of spatial predation risk modeling. With greater and more widespread usage, risk models and maps will continue to improve the effectiveness of mitigation efforts for reducing livelihood losses and strengthening carnivore conservation worldwide. Spatial risk models and hotspot maps offer a simple, quantitative and insightful tool for the conservation toolkit. Investigating ecological and behavioral feedbacks that may occur after livestock grazing or patterns protection efforts change (would make a fantastic PhD project!).Greater outreach with policymakers so that risk maps can inform large-scale decisions on conflict.Developing new and innovative methods for displaying, sharing and applying results from risk models to reach new audiences (e.g.Integrating risk models into long-term management and monitoring to explore whether they can effectively reduce human-carnivore conflict.Building and validating robust models across more areas of the world where carnivore attacks on livestock cause major problems for local livelihoods and carnivore conservation.In particular, future efforts should focus on: fencing out livestock in high-risk areas).īased on my experience of how easy and inexpensive risk models and hotspot maps are to build and use, I encourage researchers and managers to explore the many applications of these maps for their work. I saw first-hand how intuitively managers could understand risk maps and how maps could help inform management actions (e.g. My PhD involved developing spatial risk models for tigers and leopards on livestock in Kanha Tiger Reserve, central India. Below are a few samples of the variety of visual forms that risk maps can take. A great example is the interactive online map of wolf risk to livestock in Wisconsin, created by the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, where ranchers can type in their address and view to risk over several years around their property. And with increasing access to the internet and smartphone technology across the world, risk maps can be shared with stakeholders in innovative ways. In other words, maps are an ideal tool for communicating information with non-scientist audiences. In Hunchun, China, hotspot maps were included in a policy document that reportedly contributed to the government agency increasing efforts to resolve human–tiger conflict. MIKE THE TIGER VIDEO AMBUSH PREDATOR MANUALSIn Gujarat, India, risk maps on Asiatic lion attacks on livestock were included in conflict management manuals distributed to high-risk villages. MIKE THE TIGER VIDEO AMBUSH PREDATOR MOVIEThe article describes spatial risk models how they have been used by conservationists in outreach with livestock owners, managers and policymakers.įor instance, in rural Tanzania, the Ruaha Carnivore Project shared risk maps with livestock owners through PowerPoint presentations conveyed in Swahili and delivered during educational movie nights to help people recognize distributions of predator risk in their area. Last week Biodiversity and Conservation published my review on an emerging method for mapping livestock depredation hotspots, which aims to strengthen efforts to reduce human-carnivore conflict. Livestock owners and wildlife managers have struggled for centuries to protect domestic animals and carnivores alike by implementing a variety of nonlethal tools to reduce attacks, but knowing when and where to focus tools is tricky. But this livestock buffet has hidden costs when owners use lethal control or poison carcasses to kill carnivores and reduce future livestock losses. With livestock now using 30% of ice-free land on our planet, most carnivores likely live within or adjacent to a buffet of domestic animals, served up fear-free, tender and ready for the taking. One of the biggest challenges for a wild carnivore today is avoiding conflict with humans. ![]()
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