Lethal control of African lions (Panthera leo): local and regional population impacts

Abstract

Large carnivores have declined worldwide, largely through conflict with people. Here, we quantify the impact of lethal control, associated with livestock depredation, on a population of African lions (Panthera leo) living outside protected areas. Farmers shot lions only in response to livestock attacks. Nevertheless, adult mortality was high and a simple model predicted that the population was marginally stable or slowly declining. Mortality was four times higher among lions radio-collared in association with attacks on livestock, than among lions with no known history of stock killing, suggesting that some animals were habitual stock killers. Known stock killers also experienced lower reproductive success; hence there was strong artificial selection against stockkilling behaviour. In addition, mortality was higher among lions whose home ranges overlapped a property where non-traditional livestock husbandry was associated with chronic depredation by lions. This 180 km 2 ranch acted as a sink that directly affected lions over more than 2000 km 2 and may have undermined the viability of the study population. Our results suggest that sustainable coexistence of lions and people demands livestock husbandry that effectively deters predators from acquiring stock-killing behaviour, but that lethal control may play an important role in avoiding the spread of such behaviours through the population.

Evidence-based conservation: predator-proof bomas protect livestock and lions

“…This indicates Living Walls have a longterm effect on large carnivore conflict prevention. Attacking a boma represents a learned behavior (Woodroffe and Frank 2005). By breaking this learning cycle, we would expect (and witnessed) decreases in boma depredation rates at unfortified bomas.…”

“…The loss of culturally and economically valuable commodities motivates retaliatory killing among livestock owners and herdsmen (Hazzah et al 2009). Hence, lion mortality is much higher for individuals that kill livestock (Woodroffe and Frank 2005). Vigilant livestock husbandry methods can decrease large carnivore-livestock conflicts (Ogada et al 2003).…”

Beyond ritual and economics: Maasai lion hunting and conservation politics

“…Research in Kenya (Woodroffe & Frank, 2005), although not supporting such a hypothesis, suggests that lion predation on livestock is a rare behaviour and that selective hunting of stock-killing lions can help to avoid the spread of 'such damaging behaviour through the population.' Although some may take issue with Maasai anthropomorphizing of lions, for Maasai this is an important component of their relationship with wildlife.…”

Status of Striped Hyena (Hyaena Hyaena Linnaeus, 1758) and Their Conservation Approaches in Rautahat and Sarlahi Forests, Nepal

“…We investigated the Striped hyena's status in the Rautahat and Sarlahi forests and it needs to be conserving due the low population density and high level of conflicts between human and Striped hyena. Many authors (Sharma et al, 2011;Singh, 2008;Qarqaz et al, 2004) argued that conflicts with Striped hyenas are universal, and people near ubiquitous negative attitude toward carnivores and the conflicts are a major challenge to biodiversity conservation (Woodroffe & Frank, 2005;Woodroffe, 2000). In this context, human-carnivore conflicts pose an urgent challenge to carnivore conservation, especially in recent deforestation frontiers where the requirements of carnivore populations are often at odds with those of human activities.…”