Increasing game prices may alter farmers’ behaviours towards leopards (Panthera pardus) and other carnivores in South Africa

Abstract

Human-carnivore conflict occurs globally, particularly in regions where large carnivores predate livestock. Retaliatory killings do occur, and although predation of livestock by carnivores happens, losses from other factors such as disease or injury can be misattributed because of landowner perceptions. Game farming for both trophy hunting and eco-tourism is becoming increasingly common in South Africa, and there has been a rapid increase in the cost of game animals (in some species as much as five-fold) between 2010 and 2015. This could result in an increase in conflict between commercial game farmers and carnivores. We conducted two questionnaire surveys of farmers in 2010 and 2015 to investigate this. We asked if there had been changes in farming practices, perceived predator activity, perceived amount of livestock and commercial game losses, and actions taken towards carnivores in a South African farming community. We found no significant change in farming types in the area or losses of livestock between the years. However, there was a significant increase in perceived commercial game losses reported, even though protection of game had increased. Actions taken towards carnivores by livestock/game farmers were also significantly more negative in 2015 compared to farmers growing crops, but there was no such difference in 2010. We suggest that these changes could be a result of the increase in game prices over that period, leading to greater financial losses when an animal is predated, which in turn could increase the likelihood of retaliatory killings of carnivores.

Molecular tracking and prevalence of the red colour morph restricted to a harvested leopard population in South Africa

“…An annual harvest rate of 0.4 leopards/100 km 2 was determined (Thorn et al, 2012), and this density equals the leopard density in some reserves in NWP, such as Madikwe (Mann et al, 2018). In the MP cluster, an off‐take of 3–5 leopards/100 km 2 has been reported (Pirie, 2016), which is not sustainable. Over‐harvest is known to disrupt the spatial organization in carnivores due a high population turn‐over and increased home‐range vacancies (Frank et al, 2018; Newby et al, 2013).…”

Beauty or beast? Farmers’ dualistic views and the influence of aesthetic appreciation on tolerance towards black-backed jackal and caracal

“…Almost all farmers in our study area suffered livestock losses attributed to predators, with jackal and caracal, followed by Cape fox and baboons considered the main predators. Jackal, caracal and different species of baboons have been reported to kill livestock in other studies as well [ 54 ], including outside of South Africa [ 55 ]. In the main small-livestock areas of South Africa, jackal and caracal predation have been shown to respectively account for 65% and 30% of predation losses overall [ 56 ].…”

Trophy hunting and conservation: Do the major ethical theories converge in opposition to trophy hunting?

“…Some evidence also suggested that introducing non‐native herbivore (Castley et al., 2001) and carnivore species (e.g. tigers; Snijders, 2018), game protective fencing (Woodroffe et al., 2014) and removing predators to protect trophy animals (Pirie et al., 2017), all in response to trophy hunting demand, have deteriorated local biodiversity. Moreover, fuelled by rising auction prices, captive breeding of trophy animals affected biodiversity by having evolutionary consequences such as inbreeding in animal populations (Castley et al., 2001) and artificially creating ‘new species’ through hybridization, splitting and crossbreeding (e.g.…”