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Factors influencing local attitudes towards the conservation of leopard cats Prionailurus bengalensis in rural Taiwan I AN B EST and K URTIS J AI-CHYI P EI Abstract Understanding the human dimension is critical and facing population declines (Ripple et al., ). for effective conservation management of species involved Contemporary approaches to wildlife conservation have in human–carnivore conflict. There is also a need to recog- become more interdisciplinary, emphasizing the need for nize who among the local human population is supportive research that considers human dimensions and socio- of wildlife conservation. We investigated how local people’s economic as well as ecological factors (Marchini, ; attitudes and knowledge of the leopard cat Prionailurus ben- Verdade et al., ). In areas where people and carnivores galensis are influenced by socio-demographic variables, en- increasingly come into contact as human activities encroach counter rates and the nature of encounters with the felid in on wildlife habitat, an understanding of human–carnivore Taiwan. During June–August we interviewed resi- interactions and underlying human–human conflicts is dents in Miaoli County in northern Taiwan, where the leop- essential (Young et al., ; Redpath et al., ), and ard cat is known to occur. More than half of the participants opinions and attitudes toward carnivores will undoubtedly indicated they were supportive of leopard cat conservation. vary (Jacobs et al., ; Suryawanshi et al., ). The majority of those who expressed positive attitudes to- The leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis is categorized as wards protection of the leopard cat belonged to younger, Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (Ross et al., ) but more educated socio-demographic groups. Negative attitudes on the island of Taiwan it is categorized as Endangered and towards leopard cat conservation were most prevalent among is protected under Taiwan’s Wildlife Conservation Act. farmers, who also reported the highest incidence of negative Leopard cats were once widely distributed throughout experiences, mainly involving predation of poultry. We pro- Taiwan but are now limited to Miaoli County, Taichung vide recommendations to mitigate human–felid conflict, City and Nantou County (Pei, ; Chen et al., ). including changes to animal husbandry practices. We also Their current habitats, in low-elevation mountainous describe how conservation efforts for this species and wildlife regions with secondary vegetation, are in close proximity in general in Taiwan could be improved, for example through to human settlements and agricultural areas and are thus incentive and awareness-raising programmes. vulnerable to further development and encroachment (Pei, ; Chen et al., ). The leopard cat population on the Keywords Attitudes, felid conservation, human–carnivore island is estimated to comprise c. individuals; a small conflict, leopard cat, socio-demographic factors, Taiwan, fraction of the former population (Pei et al., ). The de- threatened species cline has been caused by anthropogenic factors, including Supplementary material for this article is available at commercial hunting for pelts, and habitat loss, degradation https://doi.org/./S and fragmentation (McCullough, ; Ross et al., ). Regardless of the leopard cat’s protected status under the Wildlife Conservation Act, illegal hunting still takes place (Pei, ; St. John et al., ). With increased infrastruc- Introduction ture development and habitat fragmentation, leopard cats are also occasionally killed by motorized vehicles while ffective wildlife conservation planning and manage- attempting to cross roads (Pei et al., ). ment have become critically important in many parts E Conflicts between people and leopard cats in Taiwan are of the world, with more and more species threatened often a result of poultry predation incidents, and sometimes lead to retaliatory killings of leopard cats by trapping or poi- IAN BEST* (Corresponding author) Department of Biology, Lund University, soning. In a survey conducted in Miaoli County (St. John Lund, Sweden. E-mail [email protected] et al., ), –%of respondents (n = ) admitted KURTIS JAI-CHYI PEI (Corresponding author) Institute of Wildlife Conservation, to killing leopard cats during –. Conflicts and College of Veterinary Medicine, National Pingtung University of Science and ’ Technology, Neipu, Pingtung, Taiwan. E-mail [email protected] negative attitudes are likely to persist if farmers livelihoods are threatened and they suffer economic losses, especially in *Also at: Biodiversity Program, Taiwan International Graduate Program, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan the case of small-scale poultry farmers (St. John et al., ). – Received February . Revision requested April . Human humanconflictsalsooccurinTaiwanbetweengroups Accepted July . First published online February . with varying interests concerning leopard cat conservation Oryx, 2020, 54(6), 866–872 © 2019 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000984 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, on 01 Oct 2021 at 05:44:41, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605318000984 Attitudes towards leopard cats in Taiwan 867 in this region are engaged in small-scale poultry farming for personal use (Mai, ). Also, % of the land in Miaoli County is secondary forest, artificial forest, bamboo forest or agricultural land (Miaoli County Government, ), which can be suitable habitat for leopard cats (Pei et al., ; Ross et al., ). Methods We conducted a social survey utilizing a semi-structured questionnaire (Supplementary Table ) during July– August . The questionnaire contained both closed- and open-ended questions. The questionnaire was adminis- tered during one-to-one interviews designed to elicit infor- FIG. 1 Locations of the townships Tongxiao, Yuanli and Sanyi in mation concerning socio-demographic factors (including Miaoli County, Taiwan, where surveys were conducted to age, gender, education level and occupation), attitudes and investigate local attitudes to leopard cats Prionailurus bengalensis. perceptions regarding leopard cats, knowledge of leopard cat ecology and conservation, prior experiences with the felid, and experience with conservation organizations (Pei et al., ). For example, in Miaoli County there have and/or groups. These socio-demographic variables are com- been disputes between those interested in preserving leop- monly used in studies of attitudes to wildlife conservation ard cat habitat and those with other interests, such as devel- (Kideghesho et al., ; Kansky & Knight, ; Mkonyi opment projects. The majority of leopard cat hotspots et al., ). (quality habitat with higher density of the species) occur We carried out preliminary tests of the questionnaire on on privately owned land (Pei et al., ), and therefore colleagues and made any necessary revisions. We interviewed the success of leopard cat conservation efforts depends on local residents ( per township), accounting for c. .%of the support of private landowners. households. The majority of interviews were conducted in The objectives of this exploratory study were to investi- Mandarin, with a few in English and some in Taiwanese; an gate how attitudes and awareness of leopard cat conserva- interpreter was present during all interviews. Each interview tion are influenced by various socio-demographic factors lasted – minutes and all were recorded, with the permis- in Miaoli County, northern Taiwan. We also determined sion of the participants. All interviews were later transcribed the frequency and nature of encounters, and whether they into English. The same researcher (IB) facilitated the ques- contribute to human–carnivore conflict and affect attitudes tionnaire in all interviews. towards conservation. We predicted that () any prior nega- All participants were years of age or older. Before the tive experiences involving leopard cats, such as poultry interview, participants were shown a picture of a leopard cat predation, would influence participants’ attitudes, and ()indi- and if they were familiar with the study species they were viduals that had participated in any conservation activities asked to complete the questionnaire. would have more favourable attitudes toward the conserva- We utilized a combination of snowball and random sam- tion of leopard cats. We provide novel data on local people’s pling. Snowball sampling techniques is effective for facilitat- attitudes toward the conservation of a threatened carnivore, ing access to populations or interest groups that may be and contribute to improved understanding of the human challenging to reach (Atkinson & Flint, ). We employed dimensions of wildlife conservation in a rapidly developing this technique to gain access to local people whose land East Asian country. overlaps leopard cat habitat, those who had lost poultry to leopard cat depredation, and individuals known locally to Study area have hunting experience. In the centre of each township we chose locations at random using a random number We conducted the study in three townships in Miaoli generator, to recruit interviewees. To avoid bias we did County: Sanyi, Tongxiao and Yuanli (Fig. ). These locations not interview more than one member of any household. were chosen based on the latest data available for the distri- Based on the information collected in the interviews, par- bution of leopard cats, and hotspots

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