Underlying social attitudes towards conservation of threatened carnivores in human-dominated landscapes

Abstract

Carnivore conservation depends on people's willingness to implement management practices to reduce threats to carnivores and mitigate conflicts between carnivores and domestic animals. We assessed the willingness of rural communities in central-southern Chile to (1) conserve carnivores, and (2) adopt management practices to reduce predation of domestic animals, a key factor triggering carnivore–human conflicts in rural areas. The study focused on five carnivores: the chilla Lycalopex griseus, the culpeo Lycalopex culpaeus, Darwin's fox Lycalopex fulvipes, the guiña or kodkod Leopardus guigna, and the puma Puma concolor. We found that rural communities perceived that threats towards carnivores rarely occurr in their region, contrary to the literature on this subject; people's attitudes differed depending on the carnivore; and people were willing to adopt management practices to help conserve carnivores (e.g. overnight protection of domestic animals and investment in infrastructure for henhouses and cowsheds), except leashing dogs. The willingness to conserve carnivores and adopt practices that would help do so may be associated with how these measures affect people's well-being. Although rural communities would like carnivores to be conserved, this cannot be achieved unless some pivotal practices, such as management of domestic dogs, are adopted by these communities. For successful biodiversity conservation outcomes in human-dominated landscapes, the social incentives necessary for rural communities to adopt appropriate management practices must be identified and implemented.

Diagnóstico de los conflictos fauna silvestre gente en el valle seco interandino de Vilcabamba, Andes del sur de Ecuador.

“…Sin embargo de esto, a nivel regional existe un solo estudio que reporta a esta especie como causante de conflictos con los pobladores en Colombia (Parra-Colorado et al, 2014). En el caso de L. culpaeus, se ha reportado en varios estudios relacionados a conflictos humanos fauna silvestre en Argentina (González et al, 2012;Lucherini & Merino, 2008) en donde la especie es considerada como el principal depredador del ganado (Guntiñas et al, 2021) inclusive causando más daño que el puma (Llanos et al, 2019), también existen reportes de ataques al ganado y otras especies domésticas en Chile (Novaro et al, 2017;Zorondo-Rodríguez et al, 2020) y Bolivia (Gallardo et al, 2020). Mientras que para Ecuador hasta el momento no se cuenta con documentos publicados en medios científicos sobre la conflictividad existente con este cánido silvestre.…”

Stakeholder Perceptions of Success in Human-Carnivore Coexistence Interventions

“…Yet, the actual outcomes of HCC scenarios are shaped by diverse social elements (Naha et al, 2014). Likewise, the long-term success of these initiatives relies on numerous factors including willingness to adopt intervention strategies and human behavior changes (Zorondo-Rodrıǵuez et al, 2019). Perceptions of carnivores are not based on livestock loss alone (Marchini and Macdonald, 2018), but perceptions do influence acceptance of mitigation strategies independently of scientific evidence (van Eeden et al, 2018b).…”

Livestock–Carnivore Coexistence: Moving beyond Preventive Killing

“…Livestock predation by jaguars and pumas has been extensively characterized in South American countries, particularly in Brazil [ 8 , 12 , 22 ], Argentina [ 23 , 24 , 25 ], Chile [ 26 , 27 ], Venezuela [ 11 ], Colombia [ 28 ], and Bolivia [ 10 ], but very few research studies have been carried out in Mesoamerica. Despite lacking extensive research regarding conflicts between large carnivores and livestock, the region harbors both predators and diverse indigenous communities.…”