The impact of human-carnivore conflict mitigation strategies on the landscape of coexistence

大型食肉动物在其生态系统中发挥着至关重要的生态作用。作为顶端捕食者，它们对食物链中低于它们的物种施加的压力对于维持功能和生产力是重要的（Estes等人，2011;涟漪等人，2014）。此外，它们的存在可以为它们存在的国家提供巨大的经济价值（Lindsey等人，2007; Naidoo等人，2010）和全球内在价值（Macdonald et al.，2015）。尽管如此，地球仪上的食肉动物种群仍然是最受威胁的，部分原因是它们的活动范围很大，因此依赖保护区以外的土地生存。这可能导致与人的激烈冲突-对他们的生存构成强烈威胁（Inskip和Zimmermann，2009年;涟漪等人，人类与食肉动物的冲突对狮子（Panthera leo）构成了特别的威胁，并且是该物种的主要保护问题之一。随着非洲人口的增长，人类和狮子被迫更加接近。由于牧民社区往往生活在没有围栏的国家公园的边界上，狮子掠夺牲畜的机会以及随后致命的人类报复非常普遍（货车Eeden等人，2017年）。在过去的20年里，这种冲突情景无疑导致狮子数量下降了43%（Bauer等人，2016）。为了解决这一问题，已经制定了一系列干预措施，以帮助保护牲畜，特别是在夜间。这些措施包括加强传统的牲畜bomas（使用电线或自然资源），训练警卫犬，并使用声/光威慑。虽然已经做了一些初步工作来评估这些干预措施的有效性（Abade等人，2014; Dickman，2008;米勒等人，关于个体狮子对冲突缓解干预措施（例如加强bomas）的行为反应方式，这些干预措施是否会引发行为调整以及这些影响发生的时间尺度，人们知之甚少。随着GPS无线电项圈监测的发展，人们发现狮子通过调整它们的行为在空间和时间上都避开了人类占主导地位的区域。它们在白天休息和进食时避开人类活动频繁的区域，但在夜间改用这些区域进食（Suraci等人，2019年）。此外，狮子表现出对牧场的一些景观规模的回避，并且当使用这些区域时移动得更快更直，暗示了行为调整以最大限度地减少人类接触（Oriol-Cotterill等人，2015）。然而，这种GPS监测尚未被用于确定牲畜保护策略对个体狮子行为的具体影响。即使掠夺策略成功地防止了大型食肉动物对牲畜的攻击，人们可能会继续骚扰它们，因为经济因素，文化信仰和对这些物种的负面看法加剧了冲突问题（Dickman和Hazzah，2016）。很少有人知道如何参与掠夺干预改变人们的态度和食肉动物的看法。当考虑到这些社会学变量对个人保护或不保护共享其景观的掠食性物种的倾向的影响时，这一点特别有趣（Dickman，2010）。保护大型食肉动物的态度之间的相互作用，和个人的冲突的历史，也在很大程度上是understudy.While它是重要的是要考虑的掠夺预防机制的影响在个体动物或人的水平，这也是我们必须了解他们的影响在景观水平。如果干预措施将牲畜攻击风险转移到邻近的家庭或村庄，这可能会加剧人与食肉动物的冲突问题，同时造成人与人之间的冲突。

: Large carnivores play an ecologically vital role within their ecosystem. As apex predators, the pressure they exert on species below them in the food chain is important in maintaining function and productivity (Estes et al., 2011; Ripple et al., 2014). Further, their presence can offer great economic value to the countries in which they exist (Lindsey et al., 2007; Naidoo et al., 2010), and intrinsic value worldwide (Macdonald et al., 2015). Despite this carnivore populations across the globe are some of the most threatened, in part due to their large home ranges and so dependence on land outside of protected areas for survival. This can result in intense conflict with people- a strong threat to their survival (Inskip and Zimmermann, 2009; Ripple et al., 2016).Human-carnivore conflict is of particular threat to lions (Panthera leo) and is one of the leading conservation concerns for the species. As human populations in Africa grow, people and lions are forced into closer proximity. With pastoralist communities often living on the boundaries of unfenced national parks, opportunities for livestock depredation by lions, and subsequent lethal human retaliation, are rife (van Eeden et al., 2017). Such conflict scenarios have undeniably contributed to the 43% decline in lion population numbers over the past 20 years (Bauer et al., 2016). To combat this, a range of interventions have been developed to aid in livestock protection, particularly at night. These include reinforcing traditional livestock bomas (using wire or natural resources), training guard dogs, and using sound/light deterrents. While some preliminary work has been done to assess the effectiveness of these interventions (Abade et al., 2014; Dickman, 2008; Miller et al., 2016), large gaps in the knowledge remain.Little is known about the way individual lions respond behaviourally to conflict mitigation interventions (e.g. reinforced bomas); whether such interventions trigger behavioural adjustments and over what timescale these effects occur. Following developments in GPS radio collar monitoring, it was found that lions avoided human dominated areas both spatially and temporally by adjusting their behaviour. They avoided areas of high human activity while resting and feeding during the day- but switched to using such areas for feeding at night (Suraci et al., 2019). Further, lions showed some landscape scale avoidance of pastoral lands, and when using these areas moved faster and straighter, suggestive of behavioural adjustments to minimise human encounters (Oriol-Cotterill et al., 2015). However, such GPS monitoring has not yet been used to identify the specific impact of livestock protection strategies on the behaviour of individual lions.Even when depredation strategies are successful in preventing livestock attacks by large carnivores, people may continue to persecute them as economic factors, cultural beliefs and negative perceptions of these species exacerbate the problem of conflict (Dickman and Hazzah, 2016). Little is known about how engagement with depredation interventions alters people's attitudes and perceptions of carnivores. This is particularly interesting when considering the influence such sociological variables can have on an individual's propensity to protect, or not, the predatory species that share their landscape (Dickman, 2010). The interplay between attitudes towards conservation of large carnivores, and an individual's history of conflict, is also largely understudied.While it is important to consider the impact of depredation prevention mechanisms at the level of the individual animal or person, it is also imperative that we understand their effects at the landscape level. If interventions displace livestock attack risk to neighbouring households or villages, this could inflame problems of human-carnivore conflict, and simultaneously create conflict between people.