animals Article What Factors Predispose Households in Trans-Himalaya (Central Nepal) to Livestock Predation by Snow Leopards? Mahesh P. Tiwari 1,*, Bishnu P. Devkota 1, Rodney M. Jackson 2, Bir Bahadur Khanal Chhetri 1 and Sistata Bagale 3 1 Institute of Forestry, Tribhuvan University, Pokhara 33700, Nepal;
[email protected] (B.P.D.);
[email protected] (B.B.K.C.) 2 Snow Leopard Conservancy, Sonoma, CA 95476, USA;
[email protected] 3 Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, 1870 Copenhagen, Denmark;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Received: 25 August 2020; Accepted: 26 September 2020; Published: 23 November 2020 Simple Summary: Conflict between snow leopards and humans across the trans-Himalaya is a pressing conservation concern. Conflict severely impacts the socio-economy of the local pastoralist community and threatens snow leopard survival. We investigated the socio-economic factors influencing such conflict and pastoralist attitudes towards snow leopard conservation using semi-structured interviews for a better understanding of what factors influence the variability in losses among the households in the Narphu valley, Nepal. While snow leopards caused significant losses to impoverished pastoralist households, respondents were generally accepting of their presence due to religious reasons and strict law enforcement. We observed poor herding and guarding practices with households owning larger numbers of total livestock (especially large bodied animals like yak (Bos mutus f. grunniens) and cattle (B. primigenius f. taurus)), which resulted in the higher loss. Further, compensation and insurance schemes were dysfunctional, with few households insuring their livestock and receiving compensation for depredated livestock over the past two years.