Wildlife and Human Conflict

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Wildlife and Human Conflict
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Habitat Destruction

• Habitats can be destroyed by natural causes,
  human actions, and pollution
• Natural causes lightning strikes, fires,
  hurricanes, earthquakes, and ice storms
• Human actions building highways, subdivisions,
  factories, agricultural practices
• Pollution chemical contaminants, landfills,
  smoke, smog, and acid rain destroy habitat

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Human Impact on Wildlife

• Harvest hunting and fishing
• Introduce exotic species
• Fire suppression
• Campsite and trail development
• Grazing
• Mining
• Predator control
• Harassment

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What is Human-Wildlife Conflict?

• Conflict occurs when wildlife requirements
  overlap the requirements of human populations
• Species most exposed to conflict are also shown
  to be more prone to extinction due to
  human-induced mortality
• Impact human welfare and have economic and social
  costs

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Human-Wildlife Conflict Driving Forces

• Human Population Growth
• As populations increase, settlements expand
  leading to wildlife encroachment
• Land Use Transformation
• Consequence of increasing demand for land, food
  production, energy, and raw materials
• Species habitat loss, degradation, and
  fragmentation
• Interconnected with population growth and land
  use change

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Human-Wildlife Conflict Driving Forces

• Increasing Livestock Populations
• Increased densities in livestock production
  create an overlap of diets and forage competition
  with wild herbivores
• Results in over grazing and decline of local
  herbivore
• Abundance and distribution of wild prey
• Abundance prey leads to increased predation
• Decrease prey leads to diet change of predator
  which then focuses on livestock
• Climatic factors
• Seasonal changes in rainfall or temperatures
  leads to diet and habitat change for animals

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Human-Wildlife Conflict Indicators

• Species Distribution
• Species shift away from human activity may
  indicate displacement
• Species shift towards human activity may indicate
  attraction of opportunistic species
• Abundance
• Increased abundance may indicate attraction of
  opportunistic species
• Decreased abundance may indicate displacement of
  species

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Human-Wildlife Conflict Indicators

• Population Trends
• Increasing population trends may indicate
  attraction for opportunistic species
• Decreasing population trends may indicate
  displacement
• Species Diversity
• Diversity measures combine information on the
  number of species and abundance
• A decrease in diversity may indicate some species
  have been displaced or eliminated
• Does not reflect replacement of one species with
  another

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Human-Wildlife Conflict Indicators

• Species composition
• Change in composition may indicate displacement
  of species sensitive to human presence
• May also indicate attraction if the species
  present are opportunistic
• Species Richness
• A decrease may indicate displacement of species
  sensitive to human presence
• An increase may indicate that opportunistic
  species have moved into an area
• Does not reflect the replacement of one species
  by another

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Human-Wildlife Conflict Prevention

• Lethal methods of control should not be first
  response
• Public education is needed
• Improved land use planning