Carnivores and Communities: A Case Study of Human-Carnivore Conflict Mitigation in Southwestern Alberta

Abstract

Facilitating long-term coexistence between people and large carnivores is a persistent, global conservation challenge. Evidence-based decisions to help design and implement programs that promote coexistence between people and carnivores are required. Using a case study approach, we evaluated the effectiveness of conflict mitigation efforts of a community-based program in southwestern Alberta, Canada: the Waterton Biosphere Reserve's (WBR) Carnivores and Communities Program (CACP). The CACP's overall goal is to support coexistence of people and large carnivores through initiatives including reducing livestock loss, damage to stored crops, and safety risks from carnivores by engaging residents in hands-on programming. We used an online survey to assess program participants' general awareness of and motivation to engage in the CACP, safety risks associated with living with large carnivores, and attractant management and deadstock removal programming. We received 116 completed surveys. Survey results indicated that participants felt the CACP effectively reduced conflicts with large carnivores, increased their sense of safety when living with large carnivores, and enabled them to learn skills and gain confidence in using mitigation tools (e.g., bear spray). We also evaluated temporal trends in large carnivore conflicts using occurrence records (i.e., complaint data) from 1999 through 2016. We classified these data into incidents (e.g., situations where carnivores caused property damage, obtained anthropogenic food, killed or attempted to kill livestock or pets) and focussed on incidents related to attractants, including deadstock. We focus our incident review on grizzly bears because most agricultural attractant incidents in the study area are caused by grizzly bears. We used a Chow test to evaluate if the 2009 CACP commencement represented a break point or structural change in the data. Although total reported incidents increased from 1999 through 2016, we show both reported attractant and deadstock-based incidents changed from increasing to decreasing after the CACP implementation in 2009. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of a contextually specific, community-based approach to addressing human-carnivore conflicts. More broadly, our evaluation and lessons learned provide other conservation organizations with a useful framework for addressing human-carnivore or other wildlife conflicts.

Human–wildlife coexistence in a changing world

“…Grizzly bears ( Ursus arctos horribilis ) have been moving back to North American prairies after more than a century of active suppression outside their mountain redoubt (Morehouse et al. 2020). The so‐called return of grizzly bears in this agriculturally dominated prairie landscape builds on technologies and incentives—supported by landowner willingness—that are making the landscape increasingly safer for bears as they spread farther east.…”

Factors Influencing People's Response Toward Tiger Translocation in Satkosia Tiger Reserve, Eastern India

“…There are various instances of community-based conservation being successful facilitated by multiple factors (Bajracharya et al, 2005;Brooks et al, 2013;Western et al, 2015;Morehouse et al, 2020). In the present case, promoting education along with conservation awareness measures would be effective for community-based conservation.…”

“…Fourth, the attitude of local people could have been negatively influenced by incorrect or exaggerated reporting of events by local media (Houston et al, 2010;Arbieu et al, 2019;Hiroyasu et al, 2019) and among local people themselves (Klich et al, 2018). Education, community outreach, and awareness programs can help people understand the ecology and conservation practice and build up positive attitudes toward large carnivore conservation (Bath, 1989;Vaughan et al, 2003;Datta et al, 2008;Davies-Mostert et al, 2009;Pinheiro et al, 2016;Arbieu et al, 2019;Hiroyasu et al, 2019;Morehouse et al, 2020;Sampson et al, 2020).…”

Applying Participatory Processes to Address Conflicts Over the Conservation of Large Carnivores: Understanding Conditions for Successful Management

“…In 2014, the Commission worked with stakeholder representative organizations to establish the EU Platform on coexistence between people and large carnivores, a grouping of seven organizations representing different interests groups with a joint mission to try to minimize large carnivore related conflicts 1 . The EU Platform has provided a means of sharing views and issues at a higher level, but the Platform members also recognized that conflicts on large carnivores varied significantly across the EU, depending for example, on the socio-economic activities in the areas which large carnivores are returning to and the biogeographic and natural conditions (Sjölander-Lindqvist et al, 2015;Morehouse et al, 2020). The Platform therefore supported the establishment of regional or local platforms following a similar model in different localities across the EU.…”