Determinants of attitudes to carnivores: implications for mitigating human–carnivore conflict on South African farmland M ICHELLE T HORN,MATTHEW G REEN,KELLY M ARNEWICK and D AWN M. SCOTT Abstract Human–wildlife conflict is increasingly prevalent, Introduction particularly in relation to carnivores in non-protected areas of Africa. Quantifying the attitudes of land owners towards he current rate of the extinction of species is estimated fl carnivores and understanding the factors that in uence these Tto be 1,000 times higher than in the fossil record (Pimm attitudes are instrumental in conservation planning and et al., 1995). The main causes of this biodiversity crisis are reducing persecution-related threats to carnivores. However, human population growth and range expansion, and information about attitudes to carnivores in Africa, and increased consumption of natural resources (Baillie et al., South Africa in particular, is scarce. To obtain such data we 2010). Impacts on terrestrial mammals include widespread 170 interviewed commercial game and livestock farmers in reduction in range, fragmentation and loss of habitat, loss of two ecologically important rural areas of northern South prey, population decline and local, regional and, in some Africa. Responses to statements about carnivore manage- cases, global extirpation of species (Baillie et al., 2010). ment, stock protection and predation were generally positive. Species of the order Carnivora are especially susceptible to 62 However, % of respondents believed carnivores to be these threats because their high trophic position restricts fi 35 nancially damaging and % thought them overly abun- them to low-density populations that are inherently 41 dant. Many respondents ( %) were unwilling to tolerate vulnerable to demographic and environmental stochasticity even low levels of predation and considered persecution of (Woodroffe & Ginsberg, 2000). Greater proximity and 31 carnivores to be the cheapest form of stock protection ( %). reduced resource availability have intensified competition fi Attitudes were signi cantly more positive among respon- between people and carnivores, leading to increased dents who did not kill carnivores than among those who did. human–carnivore conflict globally (Graham et al., 2005; Generalized linear regression coupled with information- Inskip & Zimmermann, 2009). Twenty-seven percent of theoretic analysis showed that attitudes to carnivores were carnivore species are considered extinct or threatened with determined by a combination of cultural and land-use extinction in the wild (IUCN, 2012). attributes more than by economic factors such as stock In Africa many carnivore populations reside outside pro- holdings or predation losses. The results elucidate potential tected areas (Mackinnon & Mackinnon, 1986), where they targets for mitigation activities and facilitate the develop- can pose a threat to human lives (Graham et al., 2005). In ment of communication, education and extension activities agricultural areas carnivores may prey upon animals that fi speci cally designed to appeal to intended recipients and have nutritional, financial or recreational value to people address prevalent motives for persecuting carnivores. (Graham et al., 2005). People frequently kill carnivores in ff Keywords Human–wildlife conflict, perception, predation, an e ort to prevent attacks on humans or livestock (Graham 2005 2009 questionnaire interview, South Africa et al., ; Inskip & Zimmermann, ) and this has potentially severe implications for the conservation of This paper contains supplementary material that can be threatened species. For example, a Namibian study attrib- found online at http://journals.cambridge.org uted 47.6% of cheetah Acinonyx jubatus mortality to persecution by humans on farmland. Reducing indiscrimi- nate persecution of carnivores in agricultural areas of Africa may therefore play an important role in conserving MICHELLE THORN*† (Corresponding author) and DAWN M. SCOTT University of threatened species. Furthermore, indiscriminate persecution Brighton, Biology Division, Huxley Building, Lewes Road, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, BN2 4GJ, UK. E-mail [email protected] of meso-predators (e.g. black-backed jackals Canis mesome- las and caracals Caracal caracal) may trigger compensatory MATTHEW GREEN Endangered Wildlife Trust, Carnivore Conservation Programme, Johannesburg, South Africa demographic responses such as increased natality and im- 2009 KELLY MARNEWICK† Centre for Wildlife Management, Hatfield Experimental migration (Prugh et al., ), potentially increasing rates of Farm, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa predation (Marker et al., 2003; Ogada et al., 2003; Thorn et al., *Also at: Centre for Wildlife Management, Hatfield Experimental Farm, 2012). Thus, in areas where meso-predators remain relatively University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa † abundant, lowering the rate of indiscriminate persecution Also at: Endangered Wildlife Trust, Carnivore Conservation Programme, fi Johannesburg, South Africa may bene t both human and carnivore populations. Received 4 December 2012. Revision requested 11 February 2013. Reducing indiscriminate killing of carnivores requires Accepted 15 April 2013. First published online 8 May 2014. a sound understanding of the factors motivating this Oryx, 2015, 49(2), 270–277 © 2014 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605313000744 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.58, on 26 Sep 2021 at 16:59:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313000744 Attitudes to carnivores in South Africa 271 BOTSWANA Properties comprising the 23° SOUTH AFRICA Waterberg Biosphere Reserve Interview locations Limpopo 24° BOTSWANA 25° 26° North West 27° FIG. 1 Sites where interviews were N carried out in the North West and 0 200 km Limpopo Provinces of South Africa. The shaded areas on the inset show the 23° 24° 25° 26° 27° 28° 29° 30° location of the provinces in South Africa. behaviour, which include social and psychological factors inform the design and targeting of relevant conflict- that affect the decision-making process (St John et al., mitigation activities. If not, conflict-mitigation strategies 2010; White & Ward, 2010). One such factor is attitude, seeking to reduce persecution by altering attitudes may be a defined here as a positive or negative response to carnivores. waste of precious resources. Attitudes affect community support for conservation This study seeks to evaluate the effect of social, economic and management initiatives (Naughton-Treves et al., 2003; and land-use variables that may influence attitudes to Davenport et al., 2010) and influence individual behaviour carnivores in South Africa. Predictions regarding these towards carnivores (Marker et al., 2003; Lindsey et al., determinants are that attitudes are more positive among 2005b; Zimmermann et al., 2005). Thus, conservation and game farmers than those with other land uses (Lindsey et al., conflict-mitigation initiatives often seek to change damag- 2005b), more positive among English-speaking farmers ing human behaviour by altering underlying attitudes than among Afrikaans-speaking farmers (Lindsey et al., (St John et al., 2010). 2005b), and negatively related to age (Lindsey et al., 2005b; We focused on attitudes to carnivores at privately owned Zimmermann et al., 2005) and stock losses (Zimmermann commercial game and livestock farms because those land et al., 2005). We would expect stock holdings and farm size uses cover the majority of agricultural land in our study to be positively related to attitude, reflecting the relative areas (Tladi et al., 2002; de Klerk, 2003). People inhabiting affluence of land owners and the concomitantly reduced these areas co-exist with medium and large-sized carnivore impact of financial losses as a result of predation (Romanach species, including brown hyaena Hyaena brunnea, leopard et al., 2007). Our analysis seeks to test these predictions, Panthera pardus, caracal, black-backed jackal, cheetah and evaluate which determinants exert the greatest influence on African wild dog Lycaon pictus. Current levels of per- attitudes to carnivores and confirm whether attitudes are secution threaten brown hyaenas, cheetahs and African correlated with persecutory behaviour. wild dogs (Friedmann & Daly, 2004; Thorn et al., 2012). Indiscriminate persecution of jackals and caracals appears Study area to be a widespread social norm (Thorn et al., 2012). Previous 2 studies have assessed local determinants of persecutory The study area comprised 116,320 km of commercial behaviour towards carnivores (Thorn et al., 2012) but not farmland in the North West Province of South Africa and 2 the perceptions and attitudes that motivate such behaviour. the 11,090 km Waterberg area of the adjacent Limpopo This is an important omission because attitudes and Province, which includes the UNESCO Waterberg behavioural intentions are often uncorrelated with actual Biosphere Reserve and surrounding areas of the Waterberg behaviour (Romanach et al., 2007; St John et al., 2010; District Municipality (Fig. 1). The Waterberg area has the Heberlein, 2012). If behaviour reflects attitudes to carnivores highest proportion of grazing land in Limpopo (de Klerk, in our study area, investigating attitude determinants will 2003) and 54% of the North West Province is used for grazing Oryx, 2015, 49(2), 270–277 © 2014 Fauna & Flora International