Crop Foraging, Crop Losses, and Crop Raiding

Abstract

Crop foraging or crop raiding concerns wildlife foraging and farmers’ reactions and responses to it. To understand crop foraging and its value to wildlife or its implications for humans requires a cross-disciplinary approach that considers the behavior and ecology of wild animals engaging in this behavior; the types and levels of competition for resources between people and wildlife; people's perceptions of and attitudes toward wildlife, including animals that forage on crops; and discourse about animals and their behaviors and how these discourses can be used for expressing dissent and distress about other social conflicts. So, to understand and respond to conflicts about crop damage, we need to look beyond what people lose, i.e., crop loss and economic equivalence, and focus more on what people say about wildlife and why they say it.

Are British urban foxes (Vulpes vulpes) “bold”? The importance of understanding human–wildlife interactions in urban areas

“…However, conflict implies repeated and conscious antagonism between wildlife and humans, that is, it is a two‐way process (Davidar, 2018), whereas most negative interactions between people and urban foxes are minor and best described as nuisance (Baker & Harris, 2007). The misuse of the term “conflict” masks the underlying complexities of human–wildlife interactions, hinders management, and has an adverse impact on how we understand and investigate these relationships (Hill, 2018; Peterson et al., 2010). In this paper, we use the term “interactions” because this better reflects the relationships between foxes and people in British cities.…”

Insights into short‐ and long‐term crop‐foraging strategies in a chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) from GPS and accelerometer data

“…Agroecosystems now cover more than one quarter of global land area (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2004), which combined with widespread habitat degradation has resulted in many species incorporating anthropogenic food sources into their diets (Hill, 2018). Primates form a large proportion of the literature on crop‐foraging (Hill, 2018).…”

“…in southern Africa are often cited by farmers as the vertebrate taxa that cause the greatest crop loss, and they are regularly shot or killed by farmers and chased by field guards (Findlay, 2016; Hill, 2000; Mwakatobe et al., 2014). While there is a body of literature on baboon crop‐foraging in subsistence agriculture (Hill, 2018), there is a lack of understanding of the patterns of baboon crop‐foraging in a commercial context. Commercial farms are much larger and individual farmers are often better resourced to trap and kill baboons.…”

Use of cultivated foods and matrix habitat by Bale monkeys in forest fragments: Assessing local human attitudes and perceptions

“…African green monkeys comprise six medium‐sized species in the genus Chlorocebus , including vervets ( C. pygerythrus ), grivets ( C. aethiops ), green monkeys ( C. sabaeus ), Malbrouck monkeys ( C. cynosuros ), tantalus monkeys ( C. tantalus ), and Bale monkeys ( C. djamdjamensis ) (Groves, ; Haus et al, ), and many are known to consume crops (Cancelliere, Chapman, Twinomugisha, & Rothman, ; Hill, ; Mekonnen et al, ; Saj et al, ). All green monkeys, except Bale monkeys ( C. djamdjamensis ), are widely distributed generalists that inhabit open and wooded habitats, consume a diverse diet, and are terrestrial or semiterrestrial (Cardini, Dunn, O'Higgins, & Elton, ; Cardini, Jansson, & Elton, ; Enstam & Isbell, ; Isbell, Pruetz, Lewis, & Young, ; Kingdon, ).…”

“…Like many other crop feeding African primates (Hill, ; McLennan et al, ), Bale monkeys face conflict with local people and are sometimes hunted in response to their crop feeding behavior (Mekonnen et al, ; Mekonnen, Fashing, Bekele, et al, ). In fact, several Bale monkey populations are believed to have been extirpated in recent decades (Mekonnen et al, ).…”